- 



1 •»• 




y 



■ • 



i 



' I ***** 

BOSTON, MASS-/ 







i^ 



To 






».-, 



Date.., 




Class JBJLlSGO 
Book _^utoJl?L_ 



Cbarles flDcEwen M^be 



A MEMORIAL 



PREPARED BY HIS SON 



HENRY KNIGHT HYDE 



EDDY PRESS 

WARE MASSACHUSETTS 

X90I 




rf^ff^ 






TO THE 

MEMORY OF 

MY FATHER AND 

TO HER WHO WAS HIS 

TRUE HELPMEET AND SHARER 

OF HIS LABORS THIS BOOK 

IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 



ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 



" Records of the providences and mercies of 

God experienced in my life, with some reflections 

occasioned by them. n 

"I, Alvan Hyde, was born at Norwich, in 

Connecticut, February 2, 1768. My father, 
Joseph Hyde, was a farmer of a reputable charac- 
ter in that town, a friend to religious order and 
religious institutions, a constant attendant on 
public and family worship; but not a professor of 
religion. From him I received much good advice 
in my early years, which by the blessing of God 
had great influence on my conduct. I loved him 
with tender affection, and ever felt myself bound 
to obey all his commands. Of my mother I have 
but faint recollection, as she died when I was but 
six years old." 

Such are the opening sentences of the diary 
of Rev. Alvan Hyde, D. D., long pastor of the 
church at Lee, Mass. A worthy descendant of 
a staunch New England family, who were among 
the first settlers of Norwich, Conn., he made a 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

profound impression in southern Berkshire on 
the life of its people. The extract from his 
diary above quoted reveals to us a glimpse of 
the religious feeling which early possessed him. 
A sober, earnest preacher of God's word, he saw 
before his death a rare harvest for his spiritual 
labors. So strongly did he impress his individ- 
uality on the church of which he was the pastor, 
that to this day, a hundred years after, his suc- 
cessor can entertain a willing auditor with the 
tale of his pastoral fidelity and anecdotes of his 
ministry. 

These were the days of an highly educated 
ministry and it was but natural that the inter- 
est of the successful pastor of southern Berkshire 
should early be enlisted in the school of north- 
ern Berkshire, founded through the liberality of 
Col. Ephraim Williams toward the close of the 
eighteenth century, which soon, with laudable 
ambition and a deserved recognition of the wis- 
dom of the founder, became known as Williams 
College. Of this institution Dr. Hyde was made 
vice-president, an office at that time entirely 
honorary and since abolished. Hence it was but 
natural that his sons, as they were fitted, should 
go to Williams for their education, though Alvan 
Hyde himself was a graduate of Dartmouth. 



ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 

The worthy doctor was blessed with a large fam- 
ily, eleven children in all. The fonrth of the 
sons, Joseph, graduated from college in the class 
of 1822, and for a year after graduation remained 
as tutor there. He then studied law with Burr 
& Benedict and was admitted to the bar in New 
York City, where he began the practice of his 
profession. Here he married Catherine, daugh- 
ter of Judge Charles McEwen, a woman of rare 
refinement and delicacy of feeling. For a short 
while he was settled in Palmyra, but soon return- 
ed to New York, where he became connected 
with the Bible Society, as Assistant Treasurer 
and General Agent, a position which he occupied 
for sixteen years. He was prominently identified 
with Dr. Adams' church, active in its councils, 
and on intimate terms with its pastor. 

His oldest son was Charles McEwen Hyde, 
born June 8, 1832, named for his mother's father. 
On her side he was a lineal descendant of one of 
the Scotch Covenanters, the first McEwen to 
come to America having been engaged in some 
of the bloody battles of that stormy period of 
Scotch history, and seeking refuge in one of the 
closing years of the seventeenth century on the 
hospitable shores of the newly founded colonies. 
Perhaps the proverbial tendency of the Scotch 



CHARLES McEWKN HYDE 

toward philosophy may have had something to 
do with the later bent of his mind in that direc- 
tion. It certainly was not as responsible as his 
parents were for the early development of his 
intellectual powers. It is credibly related of him 
that at the tender age of three years he was ac- 
customed to take his part in family prayers by 
reading the Bible in turn with other members of 
the family. This evidence of precocity was not 
the only one. He early developed an aptitude 
for language study and was thoroughly drilled in 
Latin and Greek. His father naturally wished 
to have him enter Williams college ; his comple- 
ted course in school found him ready for entrance 
at the age of fourteen. Wisely considering him 
then too young to gain the full benefit of a col- 
lege course, his father sent him to Ware, Mass. 
for a taste of business life. His father's young- 
er brother, William, was then cashier of the 
Hampshire Manufacturers' Bank there, a man of 
influence in Ware and surrounding towns, of ex- 
cellent judgment and rare common sense. For 
a many-sided outlook on life, there are few better 
positions than behind a bank counter. The 
young bank clerk, fresh from his city home, must 
have gained much valuable experience as he saw 
his uncle meet successively farmer, merchant, 



ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 

and manufacturer in this bustling little village 
of central Massachusetts. Here, too, were un- 
doubtedly learned those other lessons of business 
experience, common-places to most men of af- 
fairs, but often a sealed book to ministers of the 
Gospel. Such knowledge, while not directly the 
means of saving souls, often gains for a minister 
the respect of the men of his parish and stands 
him in good stead in the administration of affairs. 

" It was the middle of September 1848, when 
the young fellows who were afterwards to con- 
stitute the core and bulk of the college class of 
1852, came together for the first time in one of 
the two recitation rooms of Kellogg Hall, which 
small building had been erected the year previ- 
ous. Of course the first thing for these new com- 
ers to do was to learn each other's names and 
faces. There were two or three small knots of 
fellows, who had fitted for college in the same 
school, or who had otherwise gained some ac- 
quaintance with each other as coming from the 
same town, or city; but the greater part were 
totally ignorant of each other, and had a deal of 
looking and inquiry to make before they could 
even greet one another by name on the campus 
or in the boarding-houses. 

"All this was a novel and interesting expe- 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

rience to all; and, in the natnre of the case, was 
never likely to be repeated, at least on such a 
scale. Individuals of the class were more or less 
afraid of each other, until better known; and all 
were pretty much alike afraid of the Sopho- 
mores, who actually in a night or two exercised 
their functions of limited sovereignty by breaking 
out the windows of two of the new-comers, and 
otherwise wantonly demolishing pieces of their 
property. These two transient sufferers are still 
living in this year of Grace, 1900; and both are 
highly reputable and influential ministers of the 
Gospel. 

"I remember employing a good deal of the 
time of the first three or four of our recitation 
hours in trying to familiarize myself with the 
looks and dress of my classmates as preparatory 
to learning and remembering their names. All 
were total strangers to me. Nearly all were, like 
myself, ill-clothed and countrified. I also re- 
member, however, being struck day after day 
with the handsome countenance, and superior 
clothing, and appropriate manners of a certain 
member sitting near the middle of the class. 
This one, thus discriminated in my eye from all 
the rest, and sharply discriminated from most 
of the rest, was Charles Hyde of New York. 

6 



ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 

I learned little by little, that lie had been fitted 
for college in that city; that his father and sev- 
eral uncles were graduates of the college; and 
that his grandfather had been for many years the 
vice-president of the college. I thought to my- 
self, — he looks like it, and he behaves like it. 

u When he came to recite day after day, his 
work in all departments seemed as much beyond 
the average work of his classmates as his ap- 
pearance was superior to theirs. At first the two 
most imposing looking men in the class, espec- 
ially in the act of recitation, were John Dickin- 
son and Titus Deming, who sat next to each 
other, and had been brought up near each other 
from childhood in South Williamstown; but not 
even the first of these, who shortly outstripped 
his fellow altogether, ever gained the calm self- 
composure and the evident mastery of the topic 
in hand displayed by Hyde from the start. The 
first term had not passed before it was well settled 
in the councils of the class that Charles Hyde 
would be their valedictorian, and that opinion 
was never really shaken till the end. 

u However, gradually and relatively to some 
half dozen others, his recitation work declined 
in the Junior and Senior years. In independent 
investigation of subjects as they came up one 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

after the other, particularly ethical and meta- 
physical subjects, he fell noticeably behind a 
considerable number of others; but he never 
lost, after all, a certain charming pre-eminence 
over them. His personal acquaintance was easi- 
ly made and retained; he drew the confidence of 
everybody as a man and a Christian ; and I think 
it may be truly said in the best sense of that 
much abused word, that Charley Hyde was 
throughout the most popular man in this college 
class." 

So writes Prof. A. L,. Perry, so long identi- 
fied with the Berkshire institution in later years 
as professor of political economy. 

Another classmate, Rev. L,ewellyn Pratt, 
D. D. of Norwich, Conn, thus describes his 
student life. 

"It is a great pleasure to recall a student 
life so nearly ideal as that of Charles M. Hyde. 
He entered the Freshman class in Williams in 
1848, one of the youngest of its members, took 
the first place in scholarship at once, and held it 
steadily through the whole course, and at his 
graduation was the valedictorian. All this was 
accomplished with such ease, and with such 
unconsciousness of doing anything remarkable 
or being superior to anybody, that it seemed a 

8 



ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 

matter of course. He never appeared to be 
driven or in haste but was always prepared; was 
about equally successful in all parts of the cur- 
riculum, and bad leisure enough to do a large 
amount of general reading. 

u In manner he was always a gentleman, 
careful in dress and in speech, considerate of 
others, unwilling to give or take offence, affable 
and companionable, so unhurried that he could 
give time and help to others ; and commanded 
the respect and confidence of the whole college. 
He could enjoy boyish sports with the rest; but 
from these he withdrew when they became 
coarse or lawless. He was a model of good 
manners and of a clean life, and yet he was no 
prig, nor ever dreamed of posing as a model. 
Gentlemanliness and correct deportment seemed 
native and inherent in him, and in these he ex- 
celled as in scholarship with the same uncon- 
sciousness and absence of effort. 

" We all felt that back of all this, which 
was so correct and admirable, was religious 
principle. He had inherited virtue, had been 
well trained, he had made duty his guiding star. 
Reverent, faithful, true and pure, he had a 
charmed life in the midst of the whirls and tem- 
pests and temptations of college life, merited 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

and "obtained a good report.* ' 

"If I am to speak of defects — and he was 
so free from vanity and over-estimate of himself 
that he would not tolerate the claim of perfec- 
tion — I should say, lack of concentration and 
aggressiveness. Perhaps the fact that what he 
did cost so little effort was a loss to him, for he 
never seemed summoned to test himself and to do 
his best. He was a universal favorite, made no 
enmities, was friendly and in a measure sympa- 
thetic, but had no special friendships. He did 
not aspire to be a leader, was too self-contained, 
was too satisfied with things as they were and 
aimed too modestly to make himself complete in 
the course prescribed. It must be said, however, 
that he was but twenty years old when he grad- 
uated; that he had been trained to the New 
England reserve and shrinking from ostentation; 
that he regarded himself as a learner and not a 
leader; and these may account for the lack of 
which I speak. 

"We all trusted him and loved him, and all 
rejoiced when later in life he came to his work, 
where, free from conventionalities, he was to 
become the leader of men, the teacher of teach- 
ers and preachers, where all his varied acquire- 
ments, his purity of character and sanctified life 

10 



ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 

were to find concentration and scope in laying 
the foundation of Christian states and in hasten- 
ing the coming of the Kingdom of God. For 
this, his long and ample preparation had richly 
qualified him; in this, he was permitted to ac- 
complish a singularly original work; for this and 
for all his stainless and beautiful life, his mem- 
ory will be cherished in the hearts of all his 
surviving classmates." 

The foregoing letters give us a clear concep- 
tion of the position he took in college and reveal 
to us many of the characteristics so noticeable 
in later years. College judgments, while often 
immature, yet possess a positive value for the 
reason that they are based on the daily revela- 
tion of a man's thought and mode of life. 
While the class prophecies sometimes go wide of 
the mark, it is more often true that the testing 
time of a four years course makes plain the 
possession or the lack of those traits necessary 
for a man's success in the world. So when his 
classmates paid him a noteworthy token of re- 
spect as he made his appearance on the commence- 
ment stage, it was not an effervescent tribute to 
what is called in college parlance the "popular" 
man, but it was a glad recognition of their vale- 
dictorian's ability and human sympathy. 

II 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

There only remains to be said that the four 
years of his course were well filled with dis- 
tinctively literary work. Numerous essays, some 
of which have been preserved, give abundant 
evidence of this, as do the records of the Philo- 
logian, the oldest literary society in Williams, of 
which he was an active member. 

His thoughts had early turned to the minis- 
try, so there was no period of hesitation while 
the choice of a profession was being made. His 
family associations, as well as the natural bent 
of his mind, inclined him to the study of theol- 
ogy. Nor can we doubt that the higher call to 
the ministry was made plain to him by the 
witness of the Spirit. Hence it is not strange 
that we should find him, after being employed 
for a few months as private tutor at New Haven, 
Conn, and Savannah, Ga., entering Union Theo- 
logical Seminary in New York in 1853. Owing 
to the fact that there were other children in the 
family to be educated, the necessity arose for ob- 
taining means for the completion of his seminary 
course. Hence after the first year at Union we 
find him teaching in his uncle Alexander's pri- 
vate school at Lee. About this time his father 
closed his connection with the Bible Society and 
it became necessary to make a home outside of 

12 



ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION 

the city for the growing family of seven children 
— three boys and four girls. 

Following his brother Alexander's example, 
Joseph Hyde started a similar school for boys in 
Sheffield. In this venture he depended greatly 
on his eldest son, not only for assistance in 
teaching but for the general management and 
direction of the school. On the son's part there 
must have been a keen feeling of disappointment 
at the postponement or possible abandonment of 
long cherished plans. If this were so, no mur- 
mur .of discontent ever escaped his lips, but he 
bent to the task before him with all the force of 
his will. Taking on himself the work of at 
least two men he devoted himself assiduously to 
the family welfare, and after teaching during 
school sessions would work long and laboriously 
in carrying on the farm connected with the 
school. It must have been a testing time for the 
young man fresh from his college ideals. But 
we see him exhibiting in marked degree that 
unvarying persistence which ceases not until the 
work in hand is done. The subject of his col- 
lege valedictory was "Hidden Power": such pow- 
er and reserve force we notice in these few teach- 
ing years when the call of duty led him away 
from his chosen path along a road that was stony 

*3 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

and hard to travel. The way finally opened 
however for him to continne his theological 
studies. The last two years of his course he 
spent at Princeton Theological Seminary, grad- 
uating in the class of 1859. The rather stern 
orthodoxy of that stronghold of Presbyterian 
faith naturally made an impression upon his 
theological thinking, but to his credit be it said 
that he was ever more in sympathy with the 
broad humanitarianism of Mark Hopkins than 
the Calvinism of Dr. McCosh. 



H 



NEW ENGLAND PASTORATES 



His first essay in pastoral work was at Gosh- 
en, Conn, where he supplied the pulpit for a few 
months. August 19, 1862 he was ordained and 
installed pastor of the Congregational Church in 
Brimfield, Mass. The call to this parish came 
to him largely through the influence of his uncle 
William at Ware, who was well and favorably 
known by the Brookfield conference of churches. 
The parish was rather attractive to a young man 
just out of the seminary. The town itself was 
one of the oldest in western Massachusetts and 
though not large, possessed a number of families 
of good New England stock, in many cases the 
descendants of the first settlers. Nestling peace- 
fully among the hills, the lack of water power 
had fortunately prevented the desecration of its 
natural beauty by the erection of mills and fac- 
tories. The railroads too had passed it by and 
so, longer than many New England rural com- 
munities, it had retained the characteristics of 
the best stage of development of such towns. 

x 5 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

Almost entirely agricultural in its interests the 
town has ever maintained an active interest 
in church and educational work, thus living 
up to its best inherited traditions. The men 
enjoyed discussions of knotty religious problems 
and the women planned for the aid of religious 
enterprises far removed from their own borders: 
a people hard to move, not given to outward 
manifestations of enthusiasm, yet possessed of 
the saving characteristics of honesty and com- 
mon-sense, not treating the deep things of life 
lightly but according them the reverence they 
deserved. What if, perhaps, there may have 
been a great measure of importance attaching to 
the superficial things of life as well? A rural 
community like this, somewhat removed from 
direct contact with the larger movements of the 
world, naturally becomes more or less self-cen- 
tered and the harmless gossip of the neighbor- 
hood relieves the pressure of isolation. As when 
the New England farmer makes a new clearing 
and starts to cultivate the land before given to 
forest growth, he finds the soil strong; so, when 
the New Englander's reserve is cleared away and 
the man himself is subjected to the mellowing 
influences of high and Christian ideals, we find 
him ready and responsive to them — a strong 

16 



NEW ENGLAND PASTORATES 

man — strong in his individuality and determin- 
ation. 

The Church in Brimfield had a long history 
back of it, having been organized in 1724 when 
the township included parts of what now are 
Palmer, Monson, Warren, Holland and Wales. 

Beginning at a time of close union between 
church and state when none but church mem- 
bers could vote at town elections, when the 
bounds of parish and town were co-terminous, 
and when the population was equally taxed for 
the support of both, it had exercised a most im- 
portant influence in the town's history. During 
Mr. Hyde's ministry its prestige was not im- 
paired, for in the eight years of his service, from 
the date of Dr. Hopkins' sermon at the installing 
council to his resignation in 1870, over one hun- 
dred were added to the church, more than seventy 
of these additions being by profession. One 
notable revival occurred in which the labors of 
the pastor were supplemented by the earnest and 
successful efforts of the late Henry F. Durant 
of Wellesley. A prominent lawyer and Christian 
layman in one of the large cities of the middle 
west in writing of this Brimfield pastorate says 
on learning of his death u Nothing has more 
stirred me for a long time. It has recalled early 

17 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

associations, old friends, my youthful ambitions 
and most of all righteous decisions in which Mr. 
Hyde was an almost controlling factor. He 
probably did not look upon his work in Brimfield 
as being one of his most fruitful fields, but he 
was so able to influence some lives there that 
they have never failed to remember the good 
work that he did." 

He manifested an interest in the intellectual 
development of his parishioners by starting a 
book club. This helped the early formation of 
the public library which has since been a potent 
factor in the village life. 

Among the strong personalities of the town 
was Samuel Austin Hitchcock, a native of 
Brimfield who, going to Boston early in life, had 
amassed a fortune in mercantile pursuits, and 
now retired, was spending his declining years in 
his ancestral home. By careful saving, his early 
resources had increased until he became one of 
Boston's merchant princes. As illustrating his 
calculating and provident turn of mind he used 
to say of himself that it was his habit to patron- 
ize each new tailor that came to town, for he 
discovered that each new-comer would quote him 
the very lowest price in hope of getting his cus- 
tom. To Mr. Hitchcock, Brimfield is indebted 

18 



NEW ENGLAND PASTORATES 

for the establishment of the academy which 
bears his name, and of which Mr. Hyde was a 
trustee during nearly all his residence. Just be- 
fore Mr. Hitchcock's death he persuaded him to 
give $25,000. for the library in the old Congre- 
gational House in Boston which, too, in conse- 
quence bore his name. 

Mr. Hyde allied himself with those seeking 
to advance the public interests of the town and 
was ready to aid in all worthy causes. We thus 
find him in his first pastorate exhibiting those 
habits of public service, of quick sympathy 
with proper means for stimulating intelligence, 
and of wise counsel for the benevolent which were 
the distinguishing characteristics of his Christian 
service in later years. 

The fierce struggle between the North and 
South at this time, into which the flower of the 
youth of this country was drawn, did not pass 
by him unheeded. As the messenger of the 
Gospel of Peace his place was not in the ranks of 
the combatants. The opportunity for service so 
strongly appealed to him however, that procur- 
ing a substitute for his pulpit, he worked among 
the soldiers for several weeks as a member of the 
Christian Commission. 

Disregarding the old advice never to marry 

*9 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

in one's own congregation he wooed and won 
Mary, the youngest daughter of Dr. Ebenezer 
Knight, the village physician. Unlike in many 
ways, each seemed to possess in part what the 
other lacked and no better argument was ever 
made for the marriage of opposites than their 
long and happy married life, in which a common 
ideal of consecration and service dominated the 
minor differences of thought and temperament. 
The Brimfield pastorate was terminated May 
31st, 1870, and Mr. Hyde soon accepted a call to 
the Center Congregational Church of Haver- 
hill, Mass., there succeeding Rev. Dr. Munger. 
A committee from the Mount Vernon church of 
Boston went to Brimfield at the suggestion of 
Mr. Durant, before this call was given, to satisfy 
themselves of his ability to act as Dr. Kirk's 
colleague. As the idea of any colleague even- 
tually proved distasteful to Dr. Kirk, the matter 
fell through on that account, though Mr. Hyde 
had preached twice in the Boston church with 
acceptance. It is related of the committee that 
as they went to Brimfield to spy out the land, 
only one man could be found to take exception 
to their pastor's ways and conduct. He did so 
on very general grounds and when pressed to 
particularize, finally admitted that he did not 

20 



NEW ENGLAND PASTORATES 

like his walk. As a matter of fact he did have 
a certain elasticity and springiness in his step 
which was noticeable. It was the walk of a man 
able to make his own way through the crowd, 
possessed of a calm confidence. 

The field to which he was called differed 
materially from the quiet country town which 
he had left. At the time of his installation, 
November 15th, 1870, Haverhill was a small 
New England city. Fairly homogeneous in pop- 
ulation, its inhabitants principally engaged in the 
manufacture of shoes, it had not then passed 
into a position of such commanding importance 
in that line of industry as it now occupies, nor 
had it then been made the battle ground for the 
fierce conflicts between capital and organized 
labor of later years. Many of the operatives at 
this period were still of native stock, the influx 
of French Canadians then having hardly begun. 
The congregation of the Center Church was in 
part made up of the better class of these opera- 
tives, cutters for example, whose work demand- 
ed sufficient intelligence to gain for them good 
wages. 

In this active, bustling, growing place there 
were bound to be parish problems worthy of the 
best efforts of any man. Here too was a wider 

21 






CHARLES McEWKN HYDE 

scope in the fields of activity outside the church 
organization. For the greater part of his resi- 
dence he was an active and interested member of 
the school board and also of the Board of Visit- 
ors of Bradford Academy situated just across the 
river. The cause of temperance enlisted his 
sympathies and he was an energetic worker in 
its behalf. As in Brimfield, he allied himself 
with those in the community at large who strove 
to raise its moral and intellectual standing. For 
over five vears he was connected with the Mon- 
day Evening Club, an institution of the city 
which has done much to keep its members in 
touch with vital questions of the day. An asso- 
ciation of this kind, composed of business and 
professional men, brought together frequently to 
listen to an essay by one of its members and to 
participate in the discussion it may arouse, is a 
valuable institution for any town for the sake of 
the intellectual stimulus it furnishes as well as for 
the social opportunities it affords. Here the lay- 
man has a chance to talk back to the minister 
under whose preaching he may have to sit silent 
from Sunday to Sunday, whether he agrees with 
the sermonizer or not. Liberals and conserva- 
tives have to listen to each other's arguments 
and a broader toleration must perforce ensue. 

22 



NEW ENGLAND PASTORATES 

There is little doubt that Mr. Hyde's interest in 
economic and scientific subjects was in this way 
preserved, if not increased. 

Here we must begin to speak of him with a 
new title for his Alma Mater conferred the de- 
gree of doctor of divinity upon him in 1872. 

Dr. Hyde, for so was he familiarly known 
in the later years of his life, possessed the happy 
faculty of original suggestion. Many men are 
blessed with the capacity for executing well the 
directions of others, but to comparatively few is 
it given to see passing events in their true per- 
spective and seize on those worthy of distinction. 
To yoke the past to the present, to bring the 
lessons of yesterday to bear on the problems of 
to-day is not within the ability of every educated 
man. In those who possess such powers there is 
a vein of originality, not perhaps amounting to 
genius but akin to it : such ability in the poli- 
tician is the power to discern the shaping of a 
winning issue in the campaign: in the merchant, 
the foreseeing the course of the market. As 
illustrating the first of these qualities, as well as 
furnishing tangible evidence of Dr. Hyde's in- 
terest in missions, it is interesting to note that 
when the city of Haverhill purchased the old 
Atwood House, the birth-place of Harriet (At- 

23 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

wood) Newell, for the purpose of erecting a new 
high school building on that site, just before the 
old house was demolished, a memorial service 
was held in it at his suggestion. From an ac- 
count which he wrote of this service and which 
appeared in the public print the following ex- 
tracts are taken. 

4 'With the permission of Mr. Ellsworth, 
who has bought the old Atwood house, on Cres- 
cent Place, and is soon to take it down, memorial 
services were held, as had been announced Tues- 
day afternoon. Many visitors passed through 
its maze of rooms, viewing with eager curiosity 
this venerable relic. The bright December sun 
blinked through bulls'-eyes over the front door. 
The big fire-place, with its curious jambs, in the 
east parlor, and the queer bed-press attracted 
attention. The old-fashioned kitchen, and the 
cubby-holes in the huge chimney were next in- 
spected. Up stairs, visitors wandered in and 
out of the many queer-shaped, low-studded cham- 
bers, carrying off most of the wall paper that 
had such an attractive figure piece, two lovers 
reclining on a mossy bank. Most interest, of 
course, was felt in entering the little low, one- 
windowed closet under the rough roof boards, 
which Harriet Atwood made her place of retire- 

24 



NEW ENGLAND PASTORATES 

ment for closet devotion, and where most of her 
letters and journals were written. The memo- 
rial services were held in the west parlor, where 
in Mrs. Atwood's days, a half dozen ladies were 
accustomed to assemble for their weekly female 
prayer meetings. 

"Harriet Atwood, born October ioth, 1793, 
was the third of nine children, and the first 
born in the house on Crescent Place. She is de- 
scribed as being naturally warm-hearted and 
cheerful, with a strong love for books, and insa- 
tiate desire for mental improvement. Her sister 
Mary, afterward Mrs. Aaron Hardy, long identi- 
fied with the Haverhill Female Benevolent Soci- 
ety, was perhaps more gifted and attractive 
personally. But the circumstances that brought 
Harriet into connection with the origin of 
Foreign Missions from this country, have made 
Harriet the more widely known and honored. 
While attending Bradford Academy, in 1806, 
she was hopefully converted, being at the time 
only thirteen years old. 

4 'In June, 1810, Judson, Newell, Nott, Mills, 
and Hall, at the meeting of the General Associ- 
ation at Bradford, had offered their services as 
missionaries to the heathen in foreign lands. In 
October, Miss Nancy Haseltine, afterward Mrs. 

25 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

Judson, told her friend Harriet Atwood of her 
decision to go to India as a foreign missionary's 
wife. October 23rd, Mr. Newell and Harriet 
Atwood met each other for the first time. In 
the following April they had made a marriage 
engagement. February 9th, 181 2, they were 
married in the east parlor of the old Atwood 
house, and ten days afterward with Mr. and Mrs. 
Judson, they set sail from Salem for Calcutta. 

u Not permitted by the East India Company 
to commence missionary labor in India, they ob- 
tained permission to take up their abode in the 
Isle of France. Mrs. Newell's health, which 
had suffered from fever on ship-board, failed en- 
tirely after she arrived on shore. November 30th, 
1 81 2, she died, at the early age of nineteen 
years and two months. 

"But her example and influence live on. 
As Dr. Anderson wrote in the letter read at the 
meeting, 'The going of these ladies as mission- 
aries to foreign heathen lands, was at that time 
generally disapproved; and I believe, that even 
the Prudential Committee of the Board were far 
from being aware of their value as members of 
the mission. But we all now see how well it 
was that they were not left behind; for Mrs. 
Newell and Mrs. Judson awakened a more lively 

26 



NEW ENGLAND PASTORATES 

interest at home than did their husbands; and 
they amply vindicated the right and privilege 
of their sex to engage personally in the work of 
foreign missions. Mrs. Newell — for I am now 
speaking especially of her — lived not to herself, 
nor did she die to herself; and probably she ac- 
complished more by what seemed her untimely 
death, than she could have done by a long life. 
The memorial of' her cultivated mind and un- 
wavering devotion to the missionary cause, pub- 
lished soon after her death, secured for her a high 
place in the esteem and affection of the Christian 
community, which she has retained through sixty 
years. And her memory will be cherished in 
the Church of Christ, though the house in which 
she was born and the memorials of her death 
on the Isle of France shall have passed away. 
Her brief life on earth was long enough to show 
how a delicate, educated, pious woman can en- 
dure hardships as a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ. ' The noble edifice, that crowns the 
hill across the river, (Bradford Female Semina- 
ry, erected at a cost of $150,000.) is a memori- 
al of her and Mrs. Judson; and I trust the good 
people of Haverhill when they look at their High 
School, will remember that it stands on the spot 
where Harriet Newell was born." 

27 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

The Haverhill pastorate was concluded De- 
cember 15th, 1875. In the words of one, not a 
member of his own church, with whom he was 
associated in other work; "it needs no testimony 
of mine to his eminent worth in every field he 
labored in : his practical ability, his earnestness 
and resolution, his unwearied devotion to every 
good cause he espoused were conspicuous in 
Haverhill as in Honolulu and made him to be 
admired and relied upon by all who knew him." 



28 



MISSIONARY AND EDUCATIONAL 
WORK IN HAWAII 



Among the treasured heirlooms of the fam- 
ily is a yellow, time-stained bit of paper reading 
as follows : 

$8. Boston, May 24, 1825. 

The American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions acknowledge the receipt of Eight 
dollars, avails of sale of prints of Owhyhean 
youths, sold by the Rev. Alvan Hyde Jr. deceased, 
by the Rev. Alvan Hyde, D. D., I^ee, Ms. 
By order of the Board, 

Henry Hill, Treasurer. 

This is a bit of tangible evidence that thus 
early in the history of this honored missionary 
Board had the interest of the family been aroused 
in the Hawaiian field. But it is a far cry from 
L,ee to Honolulu, immensely farther in 1825 than 
it is to-day, and the good Berkshire pastor little 
dreamed that in a half-century a grandson of his 
would go as a missionary to Hawaii, and that 
his eight dollars, with countless other small con- 

29 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

tributions from American Christians, would in 
the same length of time accomplish, by the grace 
of God, the redemption of a nation from idol- 
atry. So much has been written of the wonder- 
ful success speedily attained by the early mission- 
aries to Hawaii that it is unnecessary here to 
recount the details of the thrilling story. In the 
comparatively brief period from the arrival of 
the first workers in 1820 to the year 1863 over 
fifty thousand members had been received into 
the churches. Then "came the time when the 
islands were to be recognized as nominally a 
Christian nation and the responsibility of their 
Christian institutions was to be rolled on them- 
selves. In June, 1863, Dr. Anderson, Senior 
Secretary of the American Board, met with the 
Hawaiian Evangelical Association to discuss this 
important measure. After twenty-one days of 
debate the result was reached with perfect una- 
nimity, and the Association agreed to assume the 
responsibility which had been proposed to them. 
This measure was consummated by the Board in 
the autumn following and those stations no longer 
looked to the American churches for manage- 
ment and control." u The mission has been, as 
such, disbanded and merged in the community." 
After events have seemed to call in question 

30 



WORK IN HAWAII 

the wisdom of this action, though at the time 
circumstances seemed to render such a course 
imperatively necessary. While the success of 
the Gospel had been marvelous in its transform- 
ing power, it was almost too much to expect that 
a nation, but one generation removed from bar- 
barism, should acquire in that length of time the 
stability and persistence of ideals to be found in 
older Christian communities. While the pres- 
ence of the missionary fathers acted as a restrain- 
ing, yet stimulating influence, the withdrawal of 
the fostering care of the American Board doubt- 
less lessened the intensity of Christian work. 
Some of the Hawaiians needed to be kept from 
relapsing into heathenish customs while all need- 
ed further incitement to Christian duty. A doz- 
en years experience convinced the prudential 
committee of the Board that to conserve the 
results already attained a re-entry in limited de- 
gree to the field from which they had withdrawn 
was necessary. 

The establishment of a native ministry in 
the churches had been one of the important 
results consummated by previous missionary ac- 
tivity. The necessary training of the young Ha- 
waiians for the active work of the pastorate had 
been accomplished in various ways. Many classes 

3i 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

of theological students had been gathered by 
different pastors and been instructed by them in 
the details of parish work and administration, 
as well as in exposition and homiletics. At least 
two attempts had been made toward the estab- 
lishment of a theological seminary, before the 
Hawaiian Board undertook to establish one in 
1873, on the premises in Honolulu formerly occu- 
pied by the United States Marine Hospital. 
The instructors were three of the missionary 
fathers, but death and the increasing infirmities 
of age soon cut short their labors. It now seemed 
feasible to the American Board to send out a 
man to take charge of this school and, through 
the instruction and influence of such an institu- 
tion permanently established, to raise the minis- 
terial standard and thus by the efforts of a trained 
and zealous ministry to hold the people at large 
for the right. 

It was the New England type of Christian- 
ity that had been dominant in the evangelization 
of the islands, and hence it was but natural that 
to New England should they look at this time 
for the man they wanted. They were desirous 
of securing a man of experience in the pastor- 
ate, possessed of a practical acquaintance with 
parish problems, intelligent and tactful in the 

32 



WORK IN HAWAII 

application of attempted solutions, and equipped 
by education and training for the filling of a 
post where the direct influence he was to exert 
over his students should be hardly less important 
than the counsel he could give to weak and 
needy churches where the touch of a strong 
hand was needed to set things moving in the 
right direction. Such qualifications they deem- 
ed Dr. Hyde to possess and the invitation was 
extended to him to take charge of this training 
school in Honolulu. 

March 21st, 1877, at the First Congregation- 
al church in Chelsea were held farewell ex- 
ercises previous to the departure of ten mis- 
sionaries of the A. B. C. F. M. for their different 
fields of labor. Among them were Dr. Hyde 
and his wife who, after several consultations with 
the officials of the Board, had decided to leave 
their New England home and friends and take 
up new lines of work in the distant islands of the 
sea. Mrs. and Miss Knight, Mrs. Hyde's mother 
and sister, who had been inmates of the parson- 
age at Haverhill for several winters and with 
whom the pastor's family were accustomed to 
spend the summer months, finally decided to 
make their home with the pilgrims, so there 
were six in the little party to start on the long 

33 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

journey across trie continent, the two not enu- 
merated being trie two boys of trie family, born 
at Brimfield and Haverhill. 

Landing in Honolulu in June 1877, the 
hospitable home of Mr. and Mrs. S. N. Castle was 
thrown open to them and here their first impres- 
sions of Hawaiian life were received. The rec- 
iprocity treaty with the United States had but 
lately gone into effect. Under its provisions 
Hawaiian sugar was to be allowed free entry into 
American ports and an enormous and profitable 
market was thus opened for what was already 
the largest product of the islands. The stimulus 
thus afforded to the leading industry of the com- 
munity gave a bright promise for its commercial 
future. As yet it had not begun to effect the 
changes in the city which in the two succeeding 
decades practically transformed it. The social 
life of the community was delightfully simple, 
although the seeming unconventionality was oft- 
en strictly limited by the rules of local eti- 
quette. The predominant element in business 
and social affairs being composed largely of the 
descendants of the missionary fathers and moth- 
ers, there was a strict regard for the outward 
observance of religion's requirements and no less 
truly a genuine desire on the part of most to 

34 



WORK IN HAWAII 

faithfully discharge their Christian obligations. 
This created a distinctly religious atmosphere 
as well as a power to be reckoned with in con- 
nection with important undertakings. The ma- 
jority of the foreign element were thus by birth 
and training disposed to entertain kindly feelings 
for the Hawaiians, not attempting to exploit 
them for their own advantage, but sincerely de- 
sirous of their welfare. The natives themselves 
for the most part cherished no ill-will against 
their white brethren. Altogether there was a 
remarkable absence of race prejudice. This was 
probably due in part to the wisdom displayed by 
Dr. Judd and his associates; who, when called 
upon to assist in the establishment of a civilized 
form of government, had been keen enough and 
loyal enough to their adopted land to maintain 
the native rulers and officials in their positions. 
No carpet-bagging schemes could be alleged 
against them; and the Hawaiians, thus upheld 
as the nominal rulers of the land at least, were 
not subjected to the indignities so often concom- 
itant with the advance of Anglo-Saxon civiliza- 
tion. 

They had been fearfully reduced in numbers 
since Capt. Cook's visit, when he estimated the 
population to be some four hundred thousand. 

35 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

The ravages of disease had practically decimated 
their numbers and they seemed unable to hold 
their ground in the midst of their new conditions. 
Superstition was alarmingly rife amongst them 
and to counteract this, together with its attend- 
ant train of fears, a fresh infusion of moral and 
intellectual courage was needed. Their simple 
wants were easily satisfied, for a day's wages 
would ordinarily suffice to provide for the family 
needs for a week. To arouse them from apathy, 
the sure fore-runner of decay, they must gain a 
new appreciation of the value of labor and edu- 
cation. 

Such briefly stated were the conditions 
which Dr. Hyde found confronting him on his 
arrival. It was obvious that a knowledge of the 
native language was a requisite of prime impor- 
tance, and with characteristic energy he set him- 
self at once to master it. During the brief 
period before the opening of the school, the 
name of which had now become u The North 
Pacific Missionary Institute", he had made such< 
rapid progress that he was at once able to deliver 
his lectures in Hawaiian, and to engage in con- 
versation with his students in their own tongue. 
Mr. Castle, with characteristic generosity, decid- 
ed to provide a suitable home for the new-comers, 

36 



WORK IN HAWAII 

and having solicited and obtained aid for this 
purpose from Rev. Elias Bond of Kohala, he 
bought the lot, where soon the simple two story 
house was put up, which, ever after, Dr. Hyde 
had the privilege of calling his home. This 
house has been a veritable haven of rest to many 
travel-stained missionaries en route to or from 
their labor, the mere fact of being thus employed 
being the "open sesame' ' to its comforts. 

He was not willing that his relations with 
his pupils should be confined to the class-room. 
Beside the imparting, of biblical information 
and the instruction in theology, he wanted to 
teach them how to live. As most of the students 
were married men and lived on the seminary 
grounds with their families there was abundant 
opportunity for instruction in the art of house- 
keeping. This part of the curriculum Dr. Hyde 
was glad to turn over to his wife, whose New 
England ideals were rudely shocked by the shift- 
less and improvident ways of the lazy ones, but 
whose patient efforts, in most cases, were reward- 
ed by visible improvement. 

The number of students was never very 
large, usually ranging between ten and twenty, 
the buildings accomodating the latter number 
if necessity arose. As most of them were de- 

37 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

pendent on their own exertions for their support 
during their seminary course, it was incumbent 
on Dr. Hyde to provide outside work for them. 
Putting on an old suit of clothes, he worked 
with them at first, in the institute grounds, 
showing them how they should be improved and 
kept in order. This practical illustration did 
two things for them ; it gave them a sense of 
the dignity of labor and also an opportunity of 
earning their own livelihood, for there was a 
constant demand for just such service among the 
good people of Honolulu. 

Their confidence was soon won completely 
and they came to him with all their filikias (troub- 
les). If one of the family was taken sick, or the 
father wanted a new pair of shoes and did not 
have quite enough money to buy them, over to 
his house would they go knowing that his assist- 
ance would be forthcoming. They felt free to 
ask for his help at any hour of the day or night 
and felt sure of all the aid in his power. It 
makes a vast difference whether the man to 
whom you go for advice listens patiently to your 
tale or impatiently gives you to understand that 
you are wasting his valuable time. It was a 
striking characteristic of Dr. Hyde that he was 
thus willing to lay aside the work he had in 

38 



WORK IN HAWAII 

hand and grant a willing audience to the person 
who came to him for assistance. As he express- 
ed it u the man who wanted to see him, was the 
man he wanted to see". One of the graduates 
of the institute, Rev. W. M. Kalwaiwaa, thus 
writes of his recollections : 

"In the year 1881 I entered the training 
school for native pastors in Honolulu, and there 
first met the Rev. C. M. Hyde, and presented to 
him a letter of introduction from Rev. T. Coan 
written in behalf of the Evangelical Association 
of the Island of Hawaii. 

"There were twelve of us students in the 
school this year, and we pursued our studies with 
Dr. Hyde three years, when we were sent out to 
our respective fields of labor among the native 
churches in the islands. During these three 
years we became well acquainted with our teach- 
er, and I desire to note here some of the impres- 
sions which the character and life of the man 
made upon us while we were with him. 

u Dr. Hyde impressed us as a man of great 
knowledge. We gained this impression of the 
man from his talks to us about the Bible and in 
the conversations he held with us about questions 
in philosophy. He was always ready with an 
answer for any question that was put to him by 

39 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

the students at recitations or any other occasion. 
In the meetings of the church associations he 
often explained clearly and satisfactorily the 
difficult questions that came up for discussion. 
He studied hard to understand our language, and 
he compiled a grammar of the Hawaiian lan- 
guage for our use in the school. 

"Dr. Hyde's knowledge of business affairs 
made him especially helpful to us, for it enabled 
him to offer us on many occasions the sound 
knowledge which we needed in our secular mat- 
ters ; his advice was sought by many who believ- 
ed in his good judgment. 

"Dr. Hyde was a man of great love; we be- 
came aware of that quality in his character from 
our personal contact with the man. He was a 
kind teacher, and in all his personal relations 
with the students he ever exhibited an affection- 
ate solicitude for their individual welfare. He 
always met us with a pleasant smile and cheerful 
greeting when he came into the school-room at 
the recitation hour. We never heard him speak 
an unkind word in all the three years that we 
passed under his instruction, and when a student 
once asked him why he uttered no word of cen- 
sure for our faults, he replied 'I have put all 
unkind thoughts behind me — left them in Amer- 

40 



WORK IN HAWAII 

ica.' He often questioned us about our individual 
needs and was quick to devise ways and means for 
our support while in the school. Frequently he 
invited the students to come to his home to meet 
some of the native pastors or other friends, and 
to partake with them of his hospitality in break- 
ing bread with him at his table. He gave out of 
his private funds also to those who were in need 
of assistance. He was truly a kind-hearted 
teacher, and we all loved him to the end. 

u Dr. C. M. Hyde was a deeply religious 
man, a man of prayer and faith, and we trusted 
him as religious teacher. He stood firm as a 
rock for pure religion and for a clean church. 
He wanted the church to stand for the truth as 
it is revealed in the Word of God. The benign 
influence of his teaching has made its impression 
over all these Islands through the work of those 
whom he prepared to teach the gospel of Christ. n 

Rev. H. H. Parker, pastor of Kawaiahao 
church, delivered weekly lectures to the students: 
with this exception after the first year all the 
instruction was given by Dr. Hyde. It was in- 
evitable that, as a result of such intimate rela- 
tions, his strong personality should have made a 
deep impression on them. In some cases it ex- 
tended to an imitation of his style of dress. 

4i 



CHARLES McKWEN HYDE 

The Hawaiians are naturally dignified and the 
addition of a clerical garb made them present a 
very creditable appearance at the graduating ex- 
ercises of the school. These came during "anni- 
versary week" in June and when the representa- 
tives of all the native churches were gathered 
for their annual meeting. 

After twenty years' service Dr. Hyde was 
enabled to see four-fifths of the native pulpits 
filled by his former pupils. His interest in them 
did not cease with their graduation, but followed 
them to their various fields of labor. They too 
still relied upon him for advice and would write 
to him on any conceivable subject in regard to 
which they were in doubt. In this way his 
correspondence increased until it could fairly be 
called voluminous, yet he always insisted on 
answering it all promptly. A question regard- 
ing some matter pertaining to church work at 
one time arose between a missionary's daughter 
and a native pastor on one of the other islands. 
The former suggested referring it to a certain 
person in Honolulu, and in telling the story her- 
self said that the minister preferred asking Dr. 
Hyde. Being pressed for the reason of his pref- 
erence he replied that Dr. Hyde would be sure 
to attend to it by the first return mail. This 

42 



WORK IN HAWAII 

habit of promptness was a virtue that the Hawai- 
ians appreciated, if they did not strive to imi- 
tate it. Hence his former students would write 
asking him to buy stoves or medicine, explain a 
passage of scripture, give them topics for discus- 
sion, or furnish plans for a church or parsonage, 
with equal freedom. 

He devoted considerable time to preparing 
abstracts of title to the various pieces of church 
property, as well as all the real estate holdings of 
the American and Hawaiian Boards. In these and 
other ways he endeared himself to the Hawai- 
ians and completely won their confidence. At the 
time of the small pox scourge they were badly 
frightened and hardly knew whom to trust. 
It was a critical period and many of their for- 
eign friends felt a deep sense of relief when it 
became known that Mr. Henry Waterhouse and 
Dr. Hyde had persuaded the natives to be vacci- 
nated, both men assisting in the work themselves. 
The latter was soon called to go to the pest-house 
to allay the fears of those in quarantine there. 

The old adobe dormitories of the institute 
after the wear and tear of years eventually be- 
came unfit for further service. To replace them 
a considerable sum of money was necessary, but 
this he raised among the friends of the school 

43 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

and his own friends, not calling on the Board for 
any additional appropriation on this account. 
Not far from ten thousand dollars was finally 
secured for the renovation of the old buildings 
and the erection of new ones. 

A well regulated parish cannot be consid- 
ered complete without a suitable help-meet for 
the pastor. Such a peculiar combination of 
characteristics is necessary to meet the require- 
ments of this position that as yet no institution 
has been rash enough to attempt the training of 
ministers' wives. It may be that after ' their 
training was completed there might be some 
difficulty in getting the young ladies into the 
right positions, but there can be no doubt that 
education is a very necessary adjunct of the 
training of the minister's wife. Hence it is but 
natural that we should find the head of the North 
Pacific Missionary Institute soon manifesting an 
interest in Kawaiahao Female Seminary. 

While Dr. Gulick was secretary of the Ha- 
waiian Board, he became especially interested in 
the education of Hawaiian girls, and took several 
of them into his own house to be brought up 
in connection with his own children. In 1866, 
the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society invited 
Miss L,ydia Bingham, then principal of the Ohio 

44 



WORK IN HAWAII 

Female College, at College Hill, Ohio, to come 
to Honolulu to be a teacher in this family school 
which had been in operation three years. She 
arrived in March 1867, coming out from Boston 
in the "Morning Star", with Rev. Hiram Bing- 
ham Jr. as captain. The Hawaiian Board ap- 
propriated one thousand dollars for repairs and 
additions to the buildings then occupied by Dr. 
Gulick and the Hawaiian girls in his family. 
These were the former residence of Rev. E. W. 
Clark, and also the old printing office and the 
bindery of the mission. Such was the origin of 
Kawaiahao Female Seminary. At first there 
were day scholars as well as boarders, but since 
1 87 1 it has been exclusively a boarding school, 
experience having shown that the admission of 
day scholars was a detriment rather than an ad- 
vantage to the boarding pupils. From 1867 to 
1880 the school grew and prospered under the 
faithful care of Miss Lydia Bingham, and after 
her marriage to Rev. Titus Coan of Hilo, of her 
sister Miss Elizabeth K. Bingham. 

In June 1876, the Hawaiian Mission Chil- 
dren's Society which had contributed a large part 
of its annual income to the support of this work 
suggested the expediency of putting the school 
under the special charge of a Board of Trustees. 

45 



CHARLES McEWKN HYDE 

The Hawaiian Board after a year's consideration 
appointed as the five trustees, C. M. Hyde, 
A. F. Judd, W. R. Castle, S. E. Bishop, and 
M. Kuaea. Dr. Hyde was made president and 
on him largely devolved the re-organization of 
the school necessitated by the change of control 
above noted. The buildings were ill adapted for 
school or dormitory use, not having been planned 
for that purpose, and it was plainly evident that 
radical changes were needed. From various 
friends in the States he secured money enough 
to enable the school to make a start in the right 
direction by putting up a modern building, 
called Sage Hall, as it was largely the gift of 
Miss Sarah R. Sage of Ware, Mass., the sister- 
in-law of William Hyde of that place. The in- 
creasing number of pupils compelled an enlarged 
scale of expenditure and the funds contributed 
proved inadequate. The trustees deemed the 
occasion opportune for petitioning the Board of 
Education for a grant in aid. These petitions 
were granted at several times, thirty five hun- 
dred dollars being received in the five years pre- 
vious to 1884. A five thousand dollar bequest 
from Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop enabled them 
to continue the work of replacing the old build- 
ings with new ones, until eventually the old 

46 



WORK IN HAWAII 

land-marks entirely disappeared and the pupils 
were all accommodated in the modern and com- 
modious structures now in use. In r886 three 
members of the Board withdrew. This was the 
occasion of the adoption of the following min- 
ute by the Trustees. 

"Your special Committee appointed for that 
purpose, recommend the following minute for 
adoption by this Board : 

u Rev. C. M. Hyde, D. D., Rev. S. E. Bishop 
and Hon. A. F. Judd, having offered to this 
Board their resignation as Trustees of Kawaiahao 
Female Seminary and having insisted on the 
acceptance of their resignations, we desire to put 
on record our regret that they have thought it 
best to withdraw from that over-sight and care 
of this school, which this Board has so long en- 
trusted to them. 

"And we also desire to express our apprecia- 
tion of the able manner in which that trust has 
been administered. The continuous increase in 
the number of pupils ; the growing influence of 
the school for good to the Hawaiian race; and 
the great material changes in the way of new 
buildings and appliances speak more loudly 
than words possibly could, of the ability, sagac- 
ity, and self-denying labors of these brethren 

47 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

during the past nine years. 

"And we feel that very much of this success 
has been due to the indefatigable labors of Rev. 
C. M. Hyde, D. D. who as the Executive Officer 
of the Board of Trustees has carried this school 
in his heart and given it freely his time, his 
thought, and his unwearied endeavors. 

"And we also desire to express our approval 
of the care with which the moral interests of the 
school have been conserved and with which the 
powerful influences brought to bear upon the 
Hawaiians to drag the race back to the old idol- 
atrous and pagan superstitions have ever been 
resisted by our brethren in their oversight of the 
school. 

u And we hereby express our thanks to these 
brethren for the faithful manner in which they 
have served this Board as Trustees of Kawaiahao 
Female Seminary." 

J. A. Cruzan 
A. O. Forbes 
H. Bingham 

Committee. 

Girls' schools had been established on the 
other islands but the only one beside Kawaiahao 
in successful operation in the whole group was 

48, 



WORK IN HAWAII 

the East Maui Female Seminary. In 1874 one 
had been started at Kohala by Rev. Elias Bond, 
which at one time accommodated sixty pupils. 
After the resignation of the principal, Miss 
E. W. Lyons, in 1882, no other teacher could be 
secured and the school was closed. The native 
churches on Hawaii were extremely anxious to 
have it re-opened. Kawaiahao was full to over- 
flowing and the institution on Maui had its spe- 
cial work and constituency. The buildings were 
ample and in a fair state of repair when in 1888 
the property was deeded to the Hawaiian Board, 
who commissioned Dr. Hyde to re-open the 
school. A local Board of Trustees was appoint- 
ed to have the management of the school, suffi- 
cient funds were raised to overhaul the buildings 
thoroughly and to provide for the running ex- 
penses of the first year. Dr. Hyde personally 
superintended the repairs and engaged a corps of 
teachers and had the satisfaction of seeing this 
institution once more on its feet and again start- 
ed on its mission rejoicing. 

Considering the character of the missionary 
fathers and mothers, it is not strange that in 
their self-imposed exile from their native land, 
they should have been extremely anxious for the 
education of their children This early led to the 

49 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

establishment of a school for their benefit at Pu- 
nahou, some two miles out on the "plains" from 
Honolulu near the entrance to Manoa Valley. 
Here under the wise instruction of Rev. Messrs. 
Dole, Mills and Beckwith, and their associates 
and successors, the mission youth had the foun- 
dations of their education laid. The standard 
of the school was high, its graduates usually be- 
ing fitted to enter the Sophomore class of any 
eastern college. From its halls a constant pro- 
cession of young men went forth to pursue their 
studies further in the schools of the home land. 
As a general thing, they maintained a high de- 
gree of scholarship and reflected credit on their 
adopted land and the homes and school from 
which they came. For years Williams College 
was not without a student from the islands and 
it is safe to say that from no other single source 
has it received any better material. This college 
honored itself as well as the recipients, when it 
bestowed the degree of L,. L,. D. on two of its 
sons, Gen. S. C. Armstrong and Pres. Sanford 
B. Dole, both graduates of Punahou. 

As the commercial life of the islands in- 
creased, so did the number of foreigners engaged 
in business. Many of them also were desirous of 
educational advantages for their children, so 

50 



WORK IN HAWAII 

gradually the scope of the institution widened, 
although it has always remained a distinctly 
Christian school. It was inevitable that from 
the outset it should occupy a position of com- 
manding importance in the educational life of 
the islands and such, in truth, has been its record. 
It has always been able to command the services 
of the best men in the community on its Board of 
Trustees and so it was no small honor to Dr. Hyde 
that he should have been elected to the Board 
within a month after his arrival. He was placed 
on the education committee and on the death 
of Rev. Dr. S. C. Damon was made its chairman, 
also serving as recording secretary of the whole 
Board for many years. The education committee 
being charged with the responsibility of the selec- 
tion of teachers, the duty devolved twice upon 
its chairman, at the request of his associates, to 
secure a suitable person for the head of the insti- 
tution. In a matter of so much importance 
there was need of the greatest care and the most 
thorough investigation before the final decision 
was made. In the summer of 1890 Dr. Hyde 
spent a month or two in the East on a mission of 
this nature, at the cost to himself of a serious 
drain on his vitality. The limited time at his 
command and consequent need for haste, togeth- 

5* 



CHARLES McEWKN HYDE 

er with the anxiety natural in such circumstan- 
ces, taxed his strength more than was generally 
appreciated. Long practice in the selection of 
teachers made him an adept in the art and it 
would be hard to estimate the number of posi- 
tions filled by him in this way. The sifting of 
the wheat from the chaff among the applicants, 
calls for the exercise of a discriminating judg- 
ment, especially when the sole data for decision 
lie buried in correspondence. 

The gradual increase in the English speak- 
ing population eventually forced upon the Trus- 
tees the consideration of the establishment of a 
school of lower grade where the instruction 
should be of a primary and grammar school na- 
ture and where the pupils could be fitted to enter 
intelligently on the course provided at Punahou 
itself. Dr. Hyde was much interested in this 
new departure and personally superintended the 
remodelling of the old Armstrong house into 
suitable quarters for the new school, now known 
as ' 'Punahou Preparatory". 

Hitherto we have noted Dr. Hyde's connec- 
tion with institutions of learning already estab- 
lished. It is now time for us to consider what 
he regarded as perhaps the most satisfactory of 
all his efforts in behalf of the native race, the 

52 



WORK IN HAWAII 

work that he did in the establishment of the 
Kamehameha Schools. 

In front of the old government building in 
Honolulu stands a statue of a sturdy warrior 
clad in cloak of yellow feathers. His memory 
would be perpetuated without the statue, for it 
is Kamehameha I, the first conqueror of all the 
islands who, by bringing under his own sway all 
the nobles and petty chiefs, made possible the 
rapid spread of Christianity among the people. 
The statue reveals to us a man of kingly pres- 
ence, a born leader of men. The royal house of 
which he was the founder and which has furnish- 
ed most of Hawaii's rulers, had for its last sur- 
viving representative, Bernice Pauahi Bishop. 
She had once refused the offer of the crown and 
happily married to Honolulu's leading banker, 
Charles R. Bishop, devoted herself to charity, 
good works, and whatever would tend to advance 
the best interests of her people, whose welfare 
ever lay near her heart. A worthy descendant of 
an illustrious sire, in her were exhibited the 
highest characteristics of noblesse oblige. Self- 
contained and courteous, yet with a genial sim- 
plicity of manner, she did not court vain pomp 
or show, but set a proper regard on the higher 
things of life. Filled with a desire that the fort- 

53 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

une which was hers by inheritance should be 
used at least in part for the uplifting of the Ha- 
waiian race, she felt keenly the sense of steward- 
ship for her possessions and during her life wise- 
ly administered the trust. Very near to her 
heart was the desire to give to Hawaiian youth 
educational advantages which would enable them 
to cope successfully with the problems of their 
environment. She sought counsel on this point 
from those qualified to give it, Dr. Hyde among 
others. A plan gradually took shape in her 
mind which was finally embodied in her will. By 
the provisions of that instrument a goodly share 
of her property, amounting to several hundred 
thousand dollars, was specifically devoted to the 
purpose of establishing and supporting schools 
for both boys and girls which should "provide 
first and chiefly a good education in the common 
English branches, and also instruction in morals 
and in such useful knowledge as may tend to 
make good industrious men and women". She 
also desired that "instruction in the higher 
branches should be subsidiary to the foregoing 
objects". The trustees whom she had selected 
to carry out her wishes were five in number, all 
residents of Honolulu and sincerely solicitous for 
the welfare of the native race, Chas. R. Bishop, 

54 



WORK IN HAWAII 

Samuel M. Damon, Chas. M. Cooke, W. O. 
Smith and Chas. M. Hyde. They entered on 
the discharge of their duties some six months 
after the death of Mrs. Bishop which occurred 
October 16th, 1884. 

In this way was opened to Dr. Hyde an av- 
enue of service which offered exceptional oppor- 
tunity for the exercise of those talents which, 
his by nature, had become enlarged by use. A 
close student of educational questions all his life, 
familiar as well with the practical details of 
school work in widely different fields, he was 
called upon at the period of his ripest experience, 
to aid in the foundation and formative work of 
a new institution whose capacity for good could 
hardly be overestimated. 

There come to all men visions of ideal things 
in connection with the interests that are dear to 
them but to comparatively few does there come 
the power and the privilege to render these ideals 
real. As the member of the board best qualified 
by training to speak authoritatively on educa- 
tional questions his associates were disposed to 
yield to his judgment where these were con- 
cerned. Thus it was that the opportunity was 
given him to carry into execution many of the 
plans to which in former years he had given 

55 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

much study. It was obvious that at the incep- 
tion of this new undertaking much depended on 
the man placed in charge. Careful considera- 
tion was given this matter and at length, at the 
suggestion of Dr. Hyde and Mr. Bishop, Rev. 
Wm. B. Oleson, then at the head of the Hilo 
Boys* Boarding School was called to be the first 
principal of Kamehameha. His valuable work 
laid deep and sure the foundation on which his 
successors have since reared a noteworthy me- 
morial to the beloved founder of the school. The 
success of the institution was assured from the 
start, and the good work which it has done 
abundantly proves the wisdom of Mrs. Bishop 
and those whom she charged with the execution 
of her plans. It has accomplished much for the 
practical instruction of young Hawaiians, espe- 
cially in its manual training department, and 
given them as well higher ideals and a broader 
outlook on life. If it has been successful in 
these directions there is small reason to doubt 
that years and increasing prestige will add 
largely to the influence for good which it already 
exerts. 



56 



EVANGELISTIC AND PUBLIC WORK 



A true missionary is always ready to help 
the man that is in need of help. So it was that 
Dr. Hyde's sympathies were strongly appealed 
to by the need of the various nationalities that 
made up the cosmopolitan population of Hono- 
lulu. The work among the Chinese early enlist- 
ed his attention. Many efforts had previously 
been made in their behalf and for some years a 
Sunday school had been maintained for them in 
the vestry of the old Fort Street Church. Quite 
a few conversions had been the result of a long 
period of faithful labor. 

At length the time seemed ripe for the 
banding together of these confessed followers of 
Christ as a branch of His church. Aware of 
Dr. Hyde's interest in the work, they turned to 
him and Dr. Damon for advice at this time. At 
their request he drew up a covenant and articles 
of faith as well as rules for the guidance of the 
new church. All these had to be sent to San 
Francisco for correct translation into the Chinese 

57 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

language. One curious feature of the transla- 
tion was the rendering of the idea of consecra- 
tion by the same term as was employed by the 
laborers who "shipped" on the sugar plantations. 
While we are not apt to regard the contract 
laborer as our ideal of service, we must admit 
that in his agreement to devote his entire time 
to his master's service, there is much that many 
church members might imitate with profit. The 
dull, plodding coolie by the very fact of his fidel- 
ity to the light that has been given him, puts to 
shame many of his fellow Christians possessed of 
greater advantages and less devotion. 

With admirable persistence the members of 
the new church struggled heroically to raise the 
funds necessary for the erection of a house of 
worship. In this they succeeded with the aid of 
foreign friends, and to them belongs the honor, 
so far as is known, of being the first Chinese 
congregation anywhere to put up a church build- 
ing for themselves. Here Dr. Hyde adminis- 
tered the communion for twenty years. The list 
of original members and of accessions he care- 
fully preserved, noting against the quaint Chi- 
nese characters on the roll the names as spelled 
in English, together with their addresses and 
occupations. The church has proved itself a 

58 



EVANGELISTIC AND PUBLIC WORK 

rallying point for the devoted band of workers 
who, under the wise leadership of Mr. Frank W. 
Damon, are doing so much to bring the light of 
truth to these benighted oriental minds. 

The endeavors of the sugar planters to obtain 
the necessary labor for the carrying on of their 
plantations have resulted in a strange mixture of 
nationalities. The natives did not take kindly 
to the sustained work in the cane fields, so it 
became necessary to look elsewhere for a supply. 
First and last it seems as if the planters had had 
under consideration every race on the globe from 
Esquimaux to Hottentots. It is surprising to 
note the experiments in this direction, but gen- 
erally speaking it may be said that immigration 
has come chiefly from three sources — China, 
Japan and the Azores. 

The Portuguese from the last named place 
have proved a law-abiding element of the popu- 
lation, desirous of making the country their 
home permanently, and, as a rule, frugal s and 
industrious. Being nominally connected with 
the Roman Catholic Church there seemed, at first, 
no occasion for mission work among them. The 
attention of Miss Knight, Dr. Hyde's sister-in- 
law, was soon attracted by the number of small 
children running the streets, for whom nothing 

59 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

in the way of religious education seemed to be 
provided. Calling the attention of other ladies 
to this fact, a Sunday school was started under fa- 
vorable auspices. The work developed under the 
care of Mr. A. F. Cooke and others, until in 1890 
the Hawaiian Board commissioned Dr. Hyde to 
procure workers for this field. This he did, 
inviting an earnest Portuguese evangelist from 
Springfield, Illinois, to take charge of the mis- 
sion, the support of which was henceforth as- 
sumed by the Hawaiian Board. Ten years of 
growth have witnessed the gradual broadening 
of the work, so that now the mission property, 
buildings and land, represent an expenditure of 
twenty-five thousand dollars, while a flourishing 
day school is supported in addition to the Sun- 
day school which has a regular attendance of 
nearly one hundred and fifty. 

The Japanese are comparatively late comers 
to the islands. By special treaty arrangements, 
laborers for the plantations were allowed to emi- 
grate from Japan, at the time when the govern- 
ment was jealously guarding its citizens from 
foreign enticement. 

When the tide of immigration began it 
flowed at a rapid rate for some time. The influx 
of such numbers of Japanese induced their gov- 

60 



EVANGELISTIC AND PUBLIC WORK 

eminent to station a diplomatic representative 
at Honolulu to look after their interests. As 
comparatively few Japanese had emigrated to 
other parts of the world, the post at Honolulu 
ranked third among the foreign missions of that 
government. This illustrates the importance 
attaching to the position and the extent of the 
movement. 

The Japanese are a fascinating people. Their 
courtesy and alertness produce a favorable im- 
pression on those who are brought into contact 
with them for the first time. Their wonderful 
power of adaptability and imitation makes them 
unique among the nations of the world. Their 
eager adoption of foreign ideas and their mani- 
fest desire to take a prominent part in world 
affairs account in large measure for their rapid 
advancement in the last two decades. The sub- 
sequent anti-foreign reaction is likely to prove 
but temporary, while the march of events is 
steadily carrying them forward to a position of 
greater prominence. 

As in Japan, so in Hawaii, there was the 
same speedy disposition to look with favor on 
things foreign. This created a state of mind 
favorable to the reception of Christian truth, an 
opportunity which the seed-sowers in Honolulu 

61 



CHARGES McEWEN HYDE 

were not slow to improve. Dr. Hyde ever re- 
garded his work among them as the romance of 
his missionary career, and justly so, as the follow- 
ing brief story of it will show. The Sunday 
after the arrival of the first immigrants he ar- 
ranged for a meeting in the Y. M. C. A. build- 
ing, inviting Miss Gulick, a missionary from 
Japan, who happened to be in the city, to address 
them. He then established a regular service at 
Queen Emma Hall, speaking through an inter- 
preter. 

All the members of the legation, including 
the Consul-general, Mr. Taro Ando, were regular 
attendants and soon Mr. Ando acted as inter- 
preter. An increasing interest was manifested 
and before long many came to acknowledge their 
new-found faith publicly. Mr. J. T. Waterhouse 
gave the use of the Lyceum, which better ac- 
commodated the larger number who wished to 
attend. Mr. Ando himself, then all the members 
of his family, then the attaches of the legation, 
and finally the servants of his household, publicly 
confessed their faith in Christ. This came 
about directly as a result of Dr. Hyde's preach- 
ing, which later was supplemented by the efforts 
of Rev. Mr. Miyama who came from San Fran- 
cisco that he might preach to the Japanese in 

62 



EVANGELISTIC AND PUBLIC WORK 

their own tongue. At the time of the baptism 
of the first converts, it was a striking spectacle 
that was presented, with Mr. Ando at one end of 
the line of kneeling penitents and his yard man 
at the other, some thirty or forty uniting in 
bearing this public testimony. With the ever 
increasing number of Japanese employed on the 
plantations, the importance of evangelistic work 
among them has been correspondingly increased. 
Not slow to recognize this, the missionary Board 
secured the services of Rev. O. H. Gulick, a long 
time resident of Japan, and from the small be- 
ginning outlined above has grown the well- 
organized work of to-day. 

The man who gets into right relations with 
his Maker, his fellow men, and the material facts 
of the universe in which he is placed, is the man 
of achievement. A true sense of perspective is 
absolutely necessary for a man of good judgment. 
Herein lies the chief value of education that it 
teaches us to put a correct estimate on the rela- 
tive worth of things. We are not taught that 
religious feeling and its expression are alone to 
be cultivated in this world. Our complex nature 
has a variety of demands to be satisfied, and a 
frank recognition of the fact that man's intellec- 
tual as well as his spiritual needs should be min- 

63 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

istered to, does no one any harm. To be a min- 
ister of the Gospel, or even a missionary, does not 
and should not imply the narrowing of a man's 
intellectual activity to the one line of religious 
thought. A truly broad-minded man will find 
himself in sympathy with many currents of life 
in his environment. 

Let us see whether, judged by this standard, 
Dr. Hyde was a bigot or not. Remembering the 
pleasant discussions of the Monday Evening Club 
in Haverhill and finding no such organization in 
Honolulu, he succeeded in interesting several of 
the representative men in the community in the 
formation of the Social Science Club to work 
along similar lines. The first meeting of the 
year was always held at his home and he acted 
as secretary from its inception. There can be 
little doubt that the free interchange of opinion 
thus expressed has done much to encourage char- 
ity of sentiment among those who hold radically 
different opinions on mooted questions of the day. 
The high grade of the papers read before the club 
has also had its due share in influencing many of 
the leaders of public opinion. 

At the time of his arrival in Honolulu there 
was no public library. While not actually the 
initiator of the movement which resulted in the 

64 



EVANGELISTIC AND PUBLIC WORK 

foundation of the Honolulu Library and Read- 
ing Room Association, he worked hand in hand 
with such men as Dr. C. T. Rodgers and Mr. 
A. J. Cartwright in that organization, serving as 
trustee and on its important committees. To 
obtain money for the building, which it was 
hoped might be erected for the library, he sug- 
gested the holding of a loan exhibition. At that 
time many curious relics of old Hawaiian life 
were unearthed. A number of interesting me- 
mentoes of bygone days were in the possession 
of Mrs. Chas. R. Bishop who kindly loaned them 
for the occasion. The interest then awakened 
in historical research was not without after 
effects for after Mrs. Bishops death her husband 
founded the "Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum" 
for the exhibition of these unique treasures as a 
memorial to his wife. This institution has wi- 
dened its scope until to-day it possesses the finest 
collection of articles illustrating Polynesian life 
to be found in the Pacific, and under the care of 
its well known director, Mr. W. T.Brigham, has 
come to be a laboratory as well as a veritable 
mine of riches for the ethnological student. 

Dr. Hyde was never ready to shirk the ob- 
ligations of citizenship. He never cared for the 
distinction of political office, though that easily 

65 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

might have been his. By temperate discussion 
of political questions in the public press he un- 
doubtedly exerted a considerable influence. It 
has been stated that a communication of his 
published in one of the daily papers induced the 
leaders of the reform party under the Kalakaua 
regime to substitute for the coup d'etat which 
they had already agreed upon, the plan which 
he proposed, namely, the calling of a mass meet- 
ing to urge the adoption of constitutional meas- 
ures to effect the desired change. 

Through all the various vicissitudes of the 
later years of monarchical government, he adopt- 
ed an uncompromising attitude toward any back- 
ward step and when the logic of events pointed 
toward annexation to the United States as the 
only feasible way of escape from a continuance 
of the revolutions and counter-revolutions which 
had unsettled the people, he advocated that 
course, but in such a way as not to alienate the 
affections of the natives. While he still retained 
his citizenship in the United States, he embraced 
the opportunity afforded after the revolution of 
1887 to vote in Hawaii without forswearing his 
allegiance to his native land. 

During the great peril which Honolulu un- 
derwent by reason of an invasion of the cholera 

66 



EVANGELISTIC AND PUBLIC WORK 

in 1895, he offered his services as one of the vol- 
untary corps of inspectors. He made daily visits 
to all the houses in his district, which comprised 
the worst section of the city, filing a report of 
their sanitary condition and of any cases of sick- 
ness among their inmates. 

He was much interested in the effort made 
to have Hawaii enter the Postal Union and served 
as one of a committee of three appointed by the 
then Minister of the Interior, Hon. H. A. P. 
Carter, to make the necessary arrangements to 
that effect. In these and other ways he showed 
that he realized the obligation as well as the 
privilege of citizenship; when civic duty called 
him he was ready to respond. 



67 



UTERARY WORK 



The art of composition came easily to him. 
He wielded a facile pen even in his college days 
as the few extant numbers of a junior class paper 
of which he was one of the editors bear witness. 
The doggerel rhyme of this period could hardly 
have been a source of pride to him and there is 
no evidence of his afterward attempting to write 
in verse. His prose style, even at this early 
date, presaged his later achievements of choice 
diction and orderly sequence of thought. When 
engaged in the active work of the pastorate he 
always wrote his sermons. He was an occasional 
contributor of signed articles to the weekly relig- 
ious papers and wrote often for the daily press 
on matters of general interest as well as on the 
debatable questions of the time. This constant 
practice enabled him to write readily, so that the 
written expression of his thoughts became an 
easy matter for him. 

His first published work was a history of the 
town of Brimfield. In compliance with the 

68 



UTERARY WORK 

suggestion contained in a joint resolution of 
Congress in 1876, the citizens of that town, in 
common with many others, voted to hold a cen- 
tennial celebration commemorating the first 
hundred years of the nation's life, making an 
historical address the chief feature of the cele- 
bration. Dr. Hyde, then a resident of Haver- 
hill, was chosen to deliver this address at Brim- 
field. So much interest was aroused by it that 
he was requested to prepare it for publication. 
This he did, making the address the basis for the 
carefully compiled "History of Brimfield" pub- 
lished in 1879 by the Clark W. Bryan Company 
of Springfield, Mass. The town of Lee also un- 
dertook the publication of its history. Dr. Hyde 
was charged with this work also, and had gath- 
ered much of the material for its compilation, 
when he was called upon to go to Honolulu. 
This necessitated his relinquishing the hope of 
completing the work already well begun. It was 
taken up by his uncle, the late Alexander Hyde 
of L,ee, who carried it on to a successful conclu- 
sion. 

Dr. Hyde and his wife took a trip through 
Europe in the summer of 1893. The results of 
his observations were communicated in a series 
of letters to the "Springfield Republican'* . 



CHARGES McEWKN HYDE 

This newspaper also published many articles 
from his pen on Hawaiian affairs, notably one 
under the following caption of their making, 
"The Hawaiian Revolution — its Causes, Progress 
and End, — graphically and tersely told by an 
American of character who has lived in Hono- 
lulu for many years and speaks for the best peo- 
ple there." 

With the strange persistency for getting on 
the wrong side of public questions, characteristic 
of this truly admirable paper, it eventually op- 
posed Hawaiian annexation bitterly. To use an 
expression which it is often fond of quoting, to 
the effect that questions never stay settled until 
they are settled right, nothing could be truer 
than its application to the Hawaiian annexation 
treaty. Negotiated by Harrison, disgracefully 
withdrawn by Cleveland, it survived the ex-parte 
testimony of "Paramount" Commissioner Blount 
and eventually settled irrevocably the relation of 
the two countries. 

After Dr. Hyde's health began to fail in 
1897, he went with his wife on a three months' 
visit to Japan and China. The story of his 
travels in those countries was told in a series of 
letters to the "Hawaiian Gazette.' ' 

He also wrote various articles for "Thrum's 

70 



LITERARY WORK 

Annual", mostly on subjects connected with 
Hawaiian literature. Philology had a strong 
hold on him and he was an earnest student of 
the Hawaiian language and literature. Of the 
latter he gathered the most complete collection 
in existence which he afterward gave to the 
Hawaiian Historical Society, of which he was 
one of the charter members and in whose pro- 
ceedings he took a deep interest. He often 
picked up one or more of the older books on his 
numerous journeys, some of them found in the 
deserted mission houses. 

He was always on the lookout for new words 
and so acquired a vocabulary that was the admi- 
ration of his students. One day in his class room 
a word caught his attention which he had never 
heard before and for which he searched through 
his books in vain. A student had characterized 
Absalom as a regular c 'Kamepulu' ' . The etymol- 
ogy of the word puzzled the Doctor, and it was 
only after an interview with a layman well post- 
ed in the vernacular that he discovered that the 
young theologue had made use of the phonetic 
translation of our u damphule n , the profanity 
being supposedly lost in the process of translation. 

His copy of Andrews' Hawaiian dictionary 
shows the careful study he made of the language. 

7i 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

The compiler had omitted accents altogether. 
It came to Dr. Hyde's knowledge that "Father" 
Lyons of Waimeo, Hawaii, had for years em- 
ployed an old native to assist him in supplying 
this deficiency. To avail himself of this treas- 
ured knowledge he had his dictionary rebound 
with blank leaves inserted on alternate pages 
and then equipped with this he spent a week at 
"Father" Lyons' home copying these accents, 
for ten hours a day. These blank pages are now 
well filled with the finest of writing, containing 
words not incorporated in the Andrews' edition, 
together with derivatives and shades of meaning. 
Every word of which he had made a study is 
marked and there are few words without these 
pencil notations. 

Some of the results of this language study 
he embodied in a Hawaiian Grammar published 
in 1896. He translated many tracts and at least 
one of Moody's shorter books, and was the author 
of many commentaries on various books of the 
Bible. 

In addition to the books already mentioned 
he published in collaboration with ex-President 
S. C. Bartlett of Dartmouth, the "Historical 
Sketch of the Hawaiian Mission." 

For five years previous to his death he pub- 

72 



LITERARY WORK 

lished a little quarterly entitled "Hoahana", 
containing the International Sunday-school les- 
sons and his comments thereon. This had a 
wide circulation among the Sunday - schools 
throughout the islands and grew out of his pre- 
vious work in the same line for the "Kuokoa". 

After the death of Father Lyons he took 
great delight in translating hymns into Hawaiian, 
a practice in which Father Lyons was past 
master. At the graduating exercises of the N. 
P. M. I. all the hymns sung were those which 
Dr. Hyde had translated, a feature of the occa- 
sion always pleasing to the visiting ministers. 

It has been stated that he always wrote his 
sermons. While this was true of his sermons, it 
was not always so of his addresses on special 
occasions. He was often called upon to deliver 
an address on the celebration of some anniversary 
or at some ecclesiastical gathering. Of his many 
special addresses it seems as if the two following 
were especially worthy of presentation. Follow- 
ing is the charge to the pastor at the installation 
of Rev. E. G. Beckwith, D. D. at the Central 
Union church : 

"My dear Brother: — You cannot expect 
from me on this occasion, nor could the council 
have asked of me such authoritative utterance 

73 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

as would be the delivery of a general order from 
military head-quarters. My special charge is a 
more humble one, as when on a change of sen- 
tries the corporal of the guard passes on the 
countersign. Or using an illustration more per- 
tinent to our island home, I am not appointed to 
give you such instructions for a new voyage, as 
a ship's captain would expect from the vessel's 
owners. You and I meet on this platform, as 
two vessels would meet on yonder ocean, to ex- 
change chronometer reckonings, and fix correct- 
ly the latitude and longitude, while speeding on 
their several ways. In our life's voyagings we 
have met before, both then on the same tack, but 
I so far behind you (for you were senior vale- 
dictorian in Williams College when I was a 
freshman student there), that then we could 
only exchange signals of recognition, and soon 
separated to take our different courses in life. 
Now we meet again, far from that "Spring-Ha- 
ven" here in this tropic isle, far from those 
New England scenes in which we formed our 
ideals of life and entered onr life-work. You 
will pardon these personal allusions, if touched 
to the quick by them, as our human hearts are 
touched only by life, or that which is part and 
parcel of our human lives, as these memories are. 

74 



LITERARY WORK 

For it is life that you are here to work out, and 
work upon, in your work as preacher and pastor. 
"You are to teach from these sacred script- 
ures the harmony of that revealed truth which 
this council is witness that you hold in its ful- 
ness and its integrity. God's truth is to you, as 
to me, something larger and higher than liberty 
of opinion — something dearer than life itself — 
holding us at the very nerve-centers of our 
spiritual life. It is Christian life, Christian 
truth, that you are here to exemplify and apply; 
not your opinions, however well-reasoned, nor 
your speculations however ingenious, but the 
truth as it is in Jesus. They who worship 
in the world above sing of Jesus and His worthi- 
ness. In this world of time, where we dwell, 
you will preach this heavenly theme that not 
your preaching, but your theme, will call forth 
the joy and admiration of every hearer. You 
will seek the abiding, illuminating touch of the 
Holy Spirit on your mind, and heart and tongue. 
Then you will so speak of Jesus and His redeem- 
ing love that blinded eyes will open to the glory 
of our Lord; hands closed in wilful refusal, or 
in irreverent defiance, shall clasp the cross; feet 
now wandering in mazes of sin, or groping in 
darkness down to death, shall turn and hasten 

75 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

to Jesus, the crucified, to find the pardon, peace 
and purity He only can bestow. 

"As pastor, the children and young people 
of this congregation and this community will 
ever be the objects of your tenderest solicitude : 
while to the aged Annas and Simeons you will 
show the promised Savior, that their closing eyes 
may rejoice in the divine salvation. What you 
did for the young people, when you were teacher 
here years ago, may well encourage you to spare 
no effort now to reach and help the young. 
Those former scholars of yours, now pillars in 
the church and leaders in the state, know that 
the blessed Master will never need to say to you, 
"Suffer the little children to come unto me". 
You know what it is yourself to come to God as 
a little child; and you will teach our children to 
love the name, the house and the service of our 
heavenly Father. You have yourself known 
what it is to stand at the parting of the ways in 
life's pilgrimage, and to make the solemn, irrev- 
ocable choice of the path we propose to tread, 
what object in life to pursue. You will point 
and lead the way for our young people, the way 
good men of old have trod, no whirling round of 
giddy gaiety, no racing track of fast living, but 
an ascending climb to heights of endeavor, and 

7 6 



UT'ERARY WORK 

to breadth of views that will take in holiness 
and heaven as the summit points of noblest as- 
piration, the satisfying achievement of a life 
well-spent. To the poor, you will give the warm 
hand of Christian brotherhood that has in it 
recognition and uplift, as no distribution of 
worldly wealth or social distinctions can proffer 
to earth's needy ones. Whatever acquisitions 
of property any of us may hold, you will show 
us we hold as stewards only ; and you will lead 
us to the fullest consecration of ourselves and 
our possessions, for whatever use the Master may 
call. Possessed yourself of a chastened spirit, 
of more worth than refined gold or burnished 
silver, you can comfort the afflicted mourner 
with the same comfort wherewith you have been 
comforted of God. You will teach us to open 
our hearts in fullest sympathy for all for whom 
Christ died, of whatever clime, of whatever 
nationality; and especially will you gladly co- 
operate in any further labor for the Hawaiians, 
to whom this is the land that gave them birth. 

u You come to a community, in large part 
the descendants of missionary fathers, but now 
enlarging more and more its circle of affinities, 
as commercial enterprise seeks in this genial 
clime new fields of business activity. We are 

77 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

human, with human foibles and frailties, so I 
dare not say you will never yearn for sympathy 

withheld, your motives never be misconstrued, 
your methods never maligned. But we are fol- 
lowers of Him who has taught us to know and 
feel the might and majesty of self-sacrificing, as 
well as all-forgiving love. We are an island 
community, small and isolated, but not necessa- 
rily small of soul, limited in range of thought. 
You come to us as a leader of recognized intel- 
lectual ability, acuteness and accuracy. L,ift us 
up to higher planes of thinking. Help us to 
sound with you the ocean depths of God's love 
and wisdom. You bring to us not the greenness 
and bitterness of immature fruitage, but the 
rich, ripe counsels of an enlarged acquaintance 
with spiritual truth, a varied experience of hu- 
man life. You come to us in the name of Christ. 
Teach us to do all things "for His sake", to 
whom be all the glory of our salvation; here, in 
hearts warm with Christian love, strong in 
Christian faith; there, in heavenly union with 
our glorified Redeemer, and eternal communion 
with all His Redeemed. Amen." 

Below are extracts from Dr. Hyde's address 
at the memorial service held at the old Fort St. 
church on receipt of news of the appalling loss 

78 



UTERARY WORK 

of life from three men-of-war in a terrific hurri- 
cane in the bay of Apia, Samoa: 

"Tidings of the disaster at Samoa came upon 
this community like a thunder peal and a light- 
ning flash out of a clear sky. The first thought 
in the minds of many of us was that in this 
strange providence the God of Nations, who is 
no less the Sovereign ruler of the Universe, had 
made manifest to all of what little avail are the 
schemes to thwart or turn aside the onward sweep 
of the Divine purposes. Above all the mighty 
forces of the physical system is an Almightiness 
that directs and controls them. There is no 
earthly power so high as to be beyond the reach 
of God's omnipotent sway; no earthly object so 
small as to be beneath His notice, left without 
His care. The tiny drop of water — of what 
small account is it? The viewless air — of what 
moment is that? But let God's hand gather 
these tiny drops into one mountain mass of 
waters; let God's hand but loosen with a rush 
this viewless air; then of what avail is all the 
skill of man or the enginery he can manipulate? 

"All the science of man has not yet given 
him the right of eminent domain over the forces 
of nature. They are ours to use, as we can, but 
not to command. Acknowledgment of Divine 

79 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

sovereignty, however, does not imply belief in 
divine interference with the established order. 
God's hand holds control of human wills as well 
as physical forces. Such a terrible calamity as 
has stricken many hearts with a grief beyond 
words to express, is no mere unexpected outbreak 
of the forces of nature, as when the Vandalia's 
wheel went to pieces with a crash and the rudder 
was dashed into splinters by the force of the 
waves. 

"Was it a mere fortuitous arrangement that 
brought together so many vessels in that little 
roadstead of Apia, and in the calamity following 
concentrated the thoughts of the world on that 
small group of coral islets? Shall we applaud 
or abhor the purposes or policies that led to the 
possibility of such a disaster? And can we re- 
fuse to recognize and revere the divine ordering 
of elemental forces and human purposes in these 
events? Why, even the words we use bear testi- 
mony to the real conviction of our minds. Dis- 
aster — what is that but the malign influence of 
the stars in the ruin of human hopes and the 
overthrow of human plans? History repeats 
itself again and again. Here we mourn over 
what seems useless as well as a fearful waste of 
life and property. The object of contention is 

80 



LITERARY WORK 

not worth the loss in dollars and cents which this 
disaster alone has entailed npon the two nations 
involved. Is it worth while to bring into these 
far-off waters the jealousies and rivalries that 
make Europe seem like a congeries of military 
camps rather than a sisterhood of Christian na- 
tions? Why this ruinous attempt to maintain 
an ideal balance of power in acquisition of for- 
eign territory as well as in the maintenance of 
great military establishments? The day has 
passed when governments and business can, with 
any prospect of success, be administered for the 
exclusive benefit of any one person or the exces- 
sive gain of any one set of people. The idea 
that controls in the United States is the idea that 
must control all successful administration of gov- 
ernmental policy, all successful management of 
business enterprises, -and that is the greatest 
good of the greatest number, in ways that shall 
develop the greatest productivity of the individ- 
ual and the greatest community of interest in the 
social relations of human life. 

"We may well be thankful that brother fell 
not by the hand of brother man in the carnage 
of internecine war; that we meet to mourn the 
loss of those who perished not by the naming 
cannon or the flashing sword, but in the element - 

81 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

al strife as the whole artillery of heaven vol- 
leyed and thundered on that reef-girt isle. 

''We see the waves rolling in, vast volumes 
of water rising above the masts of the laboring 
vessels, and breaking with crushing force upon 
the hapless victims of the surging billows. We 
shudder as we see with what great strength 
the surging ocean lifts and tosses on the rocky 
shore the huge hulls of the doomed ships. We 
hear above the billows' roar that awful shriek, 
the bubbling cry of some strong swimmer in his 
agony. We cringe in impotent despair as some 
uplifted hand or upturned face appeals for help 
tn the mute misery of a death beneath the en- 
gulfing wave. 

"How strange the contrast from the une- 
ventful life of officers and seamen in their 
prolonged stay in this port of peace. Yes, un- 
eventful we rightly call that routine life in these 
summer isles of these Pacific seas. It needs crit- 
ical times, posts of peril, to bring out the higher 
qualities, the godlike characteristics, of our com- 
mon humanity. Death in the line of duty was 
a thought to rouse in them the sense of honor, 
fidelity to a standard of character and attain- 
ment above the average ordinary mortal, and his 
meek yielding to fleshly temptations of time and 

82 



LITERARY WORK 

sense. The body may be bruised and mangled, 
but the spirit that keeps itself supreme to the 
agony and the torture, has in it an immortal 
element that shows its kinship with the super- 
natural and the divine. Those seamen were 
there on guard duty. But no peril of wind or 
rain could make them recreant to the duty im- 
posed on them. 

u There was one gallant officer whose splen- 
did physique and herculean strength brought to 
him in those awful moments no more assuring 
fact than the puny strength of the feeblest infant. 
Anticipating his probable fate, he went below to 
write words of affectionate farewell to his wife 
and family, to whom he was so fondly attached. 
That fact is known for the comfort of the sor- 
rowing ones, but where are the words of undying 
love? Who can recount all the thrilling inci- 
dents of heroism that throw the glory of the 
unseen world upon the tear-stained record of 
those eventful hours? What sympathy and en- 
couragement was so heartily shown in the cheers 
given with a will for the brave tars on the Eng- 
lish vessel as she put out to sea to keep from 
further imperiling those to whom nearness 
meant danger rather than relief. What kindness 
was shown by those, whose homes and inheritance 

83 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

had almost passed out of their feeble resistance to 
the clutches of a grasping power; who yet, in 
this hour of extremity, made no distinction in 
ministering to all who needed such assistance as 
they could give. We might almost turn these 
memorial services for the dead into paeans of 
praise to God for the instances of heroism shown 
by those whose meed of praise no words of ours 
can adequately set forth.' ' 

Many of the visitors from abroad who were 
entertained at his home maintained a more or 
less vigorous correspondence with him after their 
return. It was the indiscreet publication of a 
letter to one of these desultory correspondents 
that brought Dr. Hyde's name into disagreeable 
prominence. 

He had always been interested in the unfor- 
tunates who were compelled to drag out their ex- 
istence at the leper settlement in Molokai. The 
policy of segregation seeming the only feasible 
way to prevent the spread of this loathsome dis- 
ease, the victims of the dread scourge, undoubt- 
edly introduced from China, are practically ban- 
ished to this settlement from which escape is 
impossible, hemmed in as it is by the precipices 
of a mountain range on one side and the sea on 
the other. The government provides food and 

8 4 



LITERARY WORK 

clothing for those confined there while both 
Catholic and Protestant preachers minister to 
their spiritual needs. 

Of the former faith the most noted repre- 
sentative for a long time was Father Damien. 
Dr. Hyde made his acquaintance on one of his 
early trips to the leper settlement, of which he 
made quite a number, for the purpose of bring- 
ing cheer to the unfortunates and studying their 
condition that intelligent appeal might be made 
for their comfort. In 1885 after a visit to the 
settlement he published in the u Hawaiian Ga- 
zette" an account of his experiences and referred 
to Father Damien whom he characterized as 
u the noble-hearted Catholic priest who went to 
Molokai in 1873, *° care * or the spiritual welfare 
of those of his faith." He afterward learned 
from sources which could not admit the shadow 
of a doubt that some of Father Damien's personal 
habits were not all that could be desired. He 
mentioned these facts in a private letter answer- 
ing some inquiries put by the indiscreet corres- 
pondent above referred to, who immediately 
printed the letter without leave or sanction, and 
soon it was copied far and wide. This started a 
furious storm of discussion in the newspapers and 
Dr. Hyde was obliged to defend the position he 

85 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

had taken. He did this to the discomfiture of his 
critics, but his vindication caused him no pleas- 
ure. He was no iconoclast seeking to destroy a 
popular idol. To one of his friends he showed 
how popular misapprehension had invested this 
man with virtues he did not possess. It was not 
a proclamation to be made from the house-tops, 
for no good end was to be served by publicity. 
Many matters of common knowledge in regard to 
public men never find their way into print for the 
simple reason that it would be futile to publish 
them. In this case it was not until the issue of 
veracity had been squarely raised that Dr. Hyde 
printed a defense of the stand he had taken. 
This incident served to call forth from Robert 
Louis Stevenson an open letter in which he sav- 
agely scored Dr. Hyde and made a bitter personal 
attack on him. "Upon very high authority", 
says the "Literary World", "we are able to say 
that Mr. Stevenson was led before his death to see 
the subject in a somewhat different light, and even 
went so far as to admit that in his treatment of 
Dr. Hyde he had laid himself open to very heavy 
penalty. That he ever retracted the letter, or 
modified its language, we are not prepared to say, 
but we believe he regretted its publication." 



86 






PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 



It was Dr. Hyde's privilege to attend the 
annual meeting of the A. B. C. F. M. in Wor- 
cester in 1893. The impression made by him at 
that time may perhaps be best indicated by one 
of the published reports of that meeting which 
at the same time gives us a pen picture of him. 
"Dr. Hyde is one of the venerable missionaries 
whose years of experience in the field have given 
a knowledge of the Hawaiian Islands that but 
few possess. He is a man of fine presence, of 
good height, erect, hair almost snow-white, pleas- 
ant, attractive, dark face, with, however, the 
u chin of determination" which bespeaks for him, 
underneath the quiet manner, the strong com- 
manding character which has served him so long 
in his work. He speaks with a directness that 
does not need the tricks of oratory to gain for 
itself an audience. A glance around the well- 
filled hall while he was speaking showed by the 
attitude of the faces the exact direction in which 
they had to look to see the speaker." 

87 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

It was at this meeting that the liberal wing 
of the American Board gained ascendancy in its 
councils, Dr. E. K. Alden declining a re-elec- 
tion as secretary. A committee of fifteen had 
brought in a report which, while distinctly dis- 
claiming any modification of the former utter- 
ances of the Board on the subject of future 
probation, provided for a reversal of the policy on 
which the conservatives had made their stand. 
In his remarks on this report Dr. Hyde spoke as 
follows : 

U I wish simply to say, as one of the mis- 
sionaries of the American Board, that I voice 
the sentiments of many with whom I have spo- 
ken, if not all, that this large assembly interested 
in the work of the Board should adopt the report 
of this committee. Both a condition and a the- 
ory confront us now. You have heard much in 
relation to both of these aspects of this question. 
In relation to the theory let me say that in my 
opinion, in the stress of God's providence, we 
have been called upon as Christian believers, not 
to change our position, but to change our front. 
We, who go as missionaries to the heathen, 
speak to them not so much of salvation from 
death as a new life in Christ. Then again, as to 
the condition confronting us, do not, I beseech 

88 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

you, make the practical blunder of seeking to 
save your consistency instead of saving souls. 
I plead with you not to thrust your fist into your 
brother's face, but lock hands with him and 
walk together to save souls. " 

In his mental make-up there were doubtless 
conflicting tendencies. By inherited disposition 
and training he was naturally a conservative, 
but his mind was quick to grasp new phases of 
thought and to appreciate their importance and 
usefulness. This ability brought him into sym- 
pathy with some, not all, modern aspects of 
Christian belief. So he loved not the old because 
it was old, nor the new because it was new. He 
possessed a great capacity for correct judgment 
and therein lay the secret of his wide influence. 
It has been said that where a man is strongest 
there is he weakest. That may have been so in 
his case, for it sometimes happened that where 
his opinions conflicted with those of other men 
he was extremely loth to abandon the position 
which he had taken. There is a saying in the 
family that what is merely firmness in a Hyde 
would be obstinacy in any one else. Perhaps 
this obviates the necessity of further explanation. 

In May 1894 he relinquished three quarters 
of his salary that the Board might be enabled to 

89 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

engage an associate for him in his work. He 
wanted to render his experience valuable to his 
successor, recognizing that his own services could 
not continue indefinitely. His wishes were re- 
spected and Rev. J. L,eadingham of Oberlin The- 
ological Seminary was appointed instructor in 
the Institute. In 1898 he gave up the remain- 
der of his salary though still continuing in the 
service of the Board. This illustrates, as well 
as anything could, his devotion to the great 
missionary cause to which he had given over 
twenty years of his life. 

The disease which had fastened itself upon 
him in 1896 gradually undermined his constitu- 
tion and after a very severe illness in that year 
it became evident that his physical condition de- 
manded a respite from the unvarying round of 
work in which he was engaged. The insidious 
encroachments of his ailment gradually enfeebled 
him but he was able in the spring of 1899 to 
make a journey of five thousand miles to visit his 
son in Ware, with the hope that the change 
might benefit him. Here amid the scenes of his 
early life he passed a quiet summer. The jour- 
ney home seemed much longer and it required 
all the devotion of his wife, as well as his own 
fortitude, to enable him to reach the home he 

90 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

loved so well. Once there lie sank rapidly. His 
younger son on Hawaii was sent for and after he 
had seen him and passed his wedding anniversary 
he seemed to have accomplished all that he de- 
sired and fell peacefully asleep on October 13th, 
1899, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 

Dr. Hyde's life was one of action and 
achievement. He brought to the accomplish- 
ment of the duties which devolved on him an 
immense capacity for work. His customary 
practice was to rise early, usually at five, and to 
devote the first and last part of the day to the 
literary and educational work he had in hand. 
Inasmuch as he often did not retire until mid- 
night his hours for study and writing gave him 
abundant opportunity for the thorough and con- 
scientious work for which he was noted. 

There may or may not be something of truth 
in the kinship of genius and hard work. One 
thing may be safely predicated, and that is, that 
the man who possesses a genius for hard work is 
sure of making his life felt in the community 
where he lives. His powers were trained by 
service for the uses for which he had need of 
them. Thus in twenty years' service as record- 
ing secretary of the Hawaiian Board he came to 
be able in keeping the minutes to enter them 

9i 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

during the progress of the meeting and to have 
them all in proper shape at adjournment, while 
taking part in the debates and offering motions 
himself. 

He was deeply religious though he hardly 
ever spoke of his own personal experience. 
There are but two written expressions of his 
inner life that have been found, both of which 
were written during his college course; one a 
solemn covenant with his Maker after his public 
confession of faith, the other an embodiment of 
his thoughts on the first year of his Christian 
experience. The latter was written on a Sunday 
afternoon immediately following the communion 
service and contains the following remarkable 
passage: "If I should live through another 
year, I want it to be marked by growth in grace. 
And one thing I must especially guard against is 
irresolution. That is one of my besetting sins 
and in order to free myself from it I hereby re- 
solve, that by the grace of God I will never 
suffer myself to be betrayed by it ; that I will 
always do that which I resolve upon, if so be I 
should not find it to be wrong or impossible. 
Another thing is, I want to think of God and 
eternity more than I do. Therefore, resolved, 
to do everything, if possible or proper, thinking 

92 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

of God and what He would have me to do : or in 
other words to do everything as unto God and 
not unto men." 

How remarkably his life embodied the spirit 
of these resolutions is a matter of record, not 
comment. 

His belief in an over-ruling providence gave 
him a calm and serene faith. While others were 
troubled and distressed he seemed able to pre- 
serve a child-like trust in his Maker. Such faith 
is well exhibited in the following resolution of 
which he was the author: 

* 'Resolved: that this Hawaiian Evangelical 
Association desires to put upon record its grate- 
ful recognition of the Divine mercy in the full 
completion of seventy-five years of Christian 
work in these islands. The Divine guidance has 
been conspicuous from the very beginning of the 
mission, when the messengers of the Gospel first 
landed and were met with the tidings, that the old 
idolatry was abolished. Often and often again 
has imminent peril been averted by the Divine 
interference. Few of the membership of this 
Association have even the slightest remembrance 
of these past difficulties and obstacles. Be- 
fore us now stretches the vast unknown, but we 
would enter upon the new times before us with 

93 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

faith in God's presence and guidance and earnest 
desires that we may know and do all His will. 
We know that He desires the salvation of all 
men. We pledge ourselves anew by the mem- 
ories of the past, the obligations of the present, 
the hope of the future, to more unreserved con- 
secration of ourselves to God's work of redemp- 
tion.' ■ 

Of his personal characteristics it only remains 
to be said that besides those already mentioned 
the most prominent were strength and sincerity. 
One who knew him well bears this testimony to 
his possession of these qualities : 

"Not many men whom I have met in my 
long public life have seemed to me so worthy of 
confidence and love. I knew him in College, 
fifty years ago, and I remember how he im- 
pressed me then as one of the manliest young 
men of them all. And when I met him again, 
thirty-six years after, that first impression was 
not only renewed but strengthened, and it has 
gone on strengthening with every year of our 
working together. He was pre-eminently a 
manly Christian man, strong in intellect, strong 
in purpose, strong in faith, strong in executive 
force, and true as the truest to every trust repos- 
ed in him. We could not well afford to lose him. 

94 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

What will this wasting Hawaiian people do 
without him? He was their most efficient leader 
and their wisest counsellor. ' ' 

His life needs no eulogy. His conception of 
this earthly existence as but a preparation for 
the larger life beyond made him eager to do his 
Master's bidding here. An earnest, devout, self- 
sacrificing worker for the cause of Christ, it was 
given him to labor in varied fields with increas- 
ing efficiency and responsibility, and in all he 
rose to the full measure of his opportunity. 

The spirit of his life finds adequate expres- 
sion in this prayer of his composition. 

1 'Our Father in Heaven help us as we gather 
to-day as Thy children at Thy footstool, while 
in all humility we bow before Thine infinite 
majesty, to rejoice in Thine uplifting love. We 
have much to say of earthly friendship, how 
seldom we speak of the Friend we have in 
Jesus. We have much to say of earthly wealth 
and its increase, how little have we to tell of the 
infinite and eternal blessedness we have in Thee. 
We vex ourselves over failures and disappoint- 
ments that in Thy wisdom and goodness are 
meant to compact our energies and intensify our 
desires to seek only what is highest and best. 
Let not the sorrows of earth darken our outlook 

95 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

on the universe where God reigns, and all things 
work together for good in the fulfillment of Thy 
purposes of love and mercy. Here and now may 
we see how our Father worketh hitherto and 
how we must enter into Thy work if we would 
be partakers in Thy joy. Help us to open our 
eyes more and take to our souls more fully the 
common blessings of our earthly lot, to rejoice 
in sunrise glory and sunset splendors, in loveli- 
ness of air and sky, flowers and foliage, the ocean 
and the rainbow- tinted waves, mountain heights 
and sunlit valleys, all tokens of Thy love and 
goodness and wisdom in nature as Thou hast 
planned and made it. Let not sorrow lessen our 
peace or weaken our strength. May pain and 
suffering come to us only as clouds with silver 
linings, bringing with the darkness the fructify- 
ing rain. Thou dost not bribe us by happiness 
to do our present duty. Our pleasures are but 
the overflow of Thy goodness. Let happiness 
bring to us the double joy of making other lives 
bright with cheer, bringing hope to troubled 
souls and deliverance to those in the bonds of 
despair. In the abundance of Thy mercy let 
none of us think ourselves poor. Show us the 
riches we have in Thee, goodness beyond all 
measure, wisdom we cannot fathom, grace that 

9 6 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 

brightens every step in life's pathway and crowns 
with eternal glory the promised victory over sin 
and death. Forbid that we should in selfish, 
envious discontent bury the talents Thou hast 
entrusted to us, and so make into a grave what 
Thou didst mean to be a fruitful field. When 
Thou dost answer our prayers for the coming 
of Thy kingdom, let us not be appalled by a 
sense of the new obligations into which we are 
to enter nor overpowered by the new burdens that 
are laid upon us. In Thy light may we see light, 
in Thy patience find strength to overcome, in 
Thy strength our weakness made strong, in 
Thy loving presence our shield as well as our 
exceeding great reward. May we recognize and 
fulfil the duties of our citizenship in the king- 
dom of heaven. Prepare us all for the mansions 
in the Father's house above, which Thou hast 
gone to prepare for us, where our prayers shall 
all be praises and our services only the full fru- 
ition of grateful joy forevermore. Amen." 



97 



'Tis friendship's willing tribute paid 

To call of duty e'er obeyed, 

To faith serene and purpose strong 

To speed the right and check the wrong. 



TRIBUTES 
Rev. Chas. J. Hill* D. D., 

Stonington, Conn. 

"When I went to Williams College in 1849 
I became acquainted with a young man who was 
familiarly called 'Charlie Hyde'. He was one 
of the six 'Charlies' of our class — all good 
fellows. 

"He was physically one of the finest looking 
men in the class. He was about medium height, 
with a good figure, thick black hair, a smooth 
face, a clear blue eye and a manly bearing. He 
was not much of an athlete; and I do not remem- 
ber that he cared very much about the gymna- 
sium, but he was fond of walking, and I recall 
with pleasure the walks we took together up 
West mountain and over the hills which sur- 
round Williamstown. 

"He always dressed well and coming from 
New York brought its style with him. He was 

101 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

a genial, kind, courteons gentleman. We all 
loved him and acknowledged that he was the most 
popular man in our class. 

u As a scholar he was easily pre-eminent, al- 
ways accurate, ever ready to respond to his name, 
never careless in his preparation and always equal 
to any demand put upon him. It was no sur- 
prise to any of us when he took the valedictory. 

"Socially he was very popular. Though he 
did not connect himself with any of the secret 
societies he would have been welcomed by all of 
them. He was kind and courteous in his inter- 
course with every member of the class, and while 
of course he had his particular friends, he made 
every one feel that he was a true friend. He 
won the esteem and love of each one by his man- 
ly and gentlemanly bearing. 

"His Christian character was so sincere that 
we all felt his refined, gentlemanly influence. 
He could easily talk with any one, and many 
found him their wise and sympathizing counsel- 
lor in times of sorrow or hours of doubt. He 
never obtruded his religion or made any one feel 
that he esteemed himself any better than the 
rest of us (though we all thought that he was.) 
I think that with one other exception he was the 
only one who did not smoke at the class supper 

102 



TRIBUTES 

when our course was finished. 

" After a year of teaching we became class- 
mates in Union Theological Seminary of New 
York. There he showed the same scholarly and 
religious character, and won the esteem and af- 
fection of those with whom he daily associated. 
But it was not college. The careless, happy days 
in Williams were over and we were beginning 
the serious preparation for our life-work. It was 
then, and I presume still is, the practice of stu- 
dents to engage in city missionary work. I asked 
to be sent to the worst district in the city and 
was appointed to work at the Five Points (where 
by the way, I acquired a better preparation for 
the ministry than I did by studying the 'Five 
Points of Calvinism'). 

u At the Five Points House of Industry there 
was need of some one to keep the books. Know- 
ing that Mr. Hyde was a good accountant, I 
asked him to take the work, and he kindly agreed 
to give two half days a week to settling the mon- 
ey affairs of the Institution. It was just as much 
missionary work as visiting the poor and sinful 
in their wretched rooms. He did that work for 
a year. 

"When the time came for me to marry the 
daughter of Rev. Dr. Todd of Pittsfield, there 

103 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

was no one that I wanted for my best man, but 
my old college friend. Though my wife has left 
me there is still upon our sideboard the beautiful 
gift he gave her, and my children all know that 
'Charlie Hyde' was my most beloved college 
classmate. " 



Rev. Charles Augustus Stoddard. D. D., 

Editor of the "Observer". New York City. 

u Mr. Hyde was with me two years in Wil- 
liams College. He was one of the purest and 
best young men in the college. His life was 
blameless, but it was influential. He had the 
respect of all the students because he was a fine 
scholar, a friendly and companionable man, and a 
consistent Christian. His character was well 
rounded, and his life in college had the poise and 
finish which is rare at so early a period. His in- 
fluence upon others, which was always consider- 
able, seemed to come from the man himself 
rather than from any effort or actions; it was 
like sunshine or pure air, every person in his 
company felt and enjoyed it. 

104 



TRIBUTES 

"I was very sorry that he went to live in 
Honolulu, though I am not unmindful of the 
good work which he did there, for I hoped and 
believed that even more important and honor- 
able work might have claimed him in the United 
States. I have met him but twice since his grad- 
uation from college, but on both occasions found 
him the same man, grown larger in all that 
makes true manhood. n 



Rev. J. D. Kingsbury, D. D., 

Bradford, Mass. 

U I knew him intimately as he served as pas- 
tor of the Center Church in Haverhill during the 
years 1870-75. 

4 'He was a rare man. In breadth and accu- 
racy of scholarship he stood easily among the 
first, having critical knowledge of language and 
a wide acquaintance with literature and a some- 
what profound conversance with the schools of 
philosophy and of theology. But his knowledge, 
which was often superior to the apprehension 
of his associates, always wore the veil of mod- 

io 5 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

esty. He never appeared as one having mastered 
all things, but rather as a disciple seeking and 
striving to know. 

"He was a loving pastor, devoted to his flock, 
and greatly beloved in the houses of those whose 
hearts were pressed by want, or anguished in 
grief. 

"His preaching was the simple, forceful 
gospel, giving hope and faith and joy to those 
who believe in the divine revealing to men. 

"His genial spirit and artless manner made 
him a valued companion in any circle. He was 
a true gentleman, noble and commanding in 
favor, appreciative always of the opinion and 
wishes of others, amiable, courteous, strong and 
tender in sympathy, ever ready with kindly 
words or ministries, and keenly alive to the de- 
mands of every duty and occasion of life, where 
God had given him a part. 

"He was a man of great wisdom in the af- 
fairs of more public nature in the city or in the 
Commonwealth. His views of duty were posi- 
tive and he never shrank from the utterance of 
them, whether they were favored or opposed by 
men. 

"In theology he was conservative but suffi- 
ciently progressive to keep him abreastof present 

106 



TRIBUTES 

day thinking. He was never rusty or old-fash- 
ioned, but in his forms of thought, his views of 
truth, his methods of investigation, he kept pace 
with the advance of scholars, and those who 
knew him intimately recognized the freshness, 
originality, and sincerity of his intellect, his 
heart and his soul. 

M It is a great pleasure to bear testimony to 
the life and character of my friend whose years 
were all too few among us, here in the valley of 
the Merrimac." 



Rev. S. Iy. Desha, 

Hilo, Hawaii. 

"Truly the beloved faces of the fathers are 
passing away. Dr. Hyde's words of comfort will 
no longer be heard, and the presence that brought 
blessings wherever he went, will not again be 
seen; but the words of love, the good words of 
admonition, the deeds of love, will never be for- 
gotten by those who enjoyed these blessings. 
Never will fade from my memory the smiling 
face, the winning voice, and the loving words of 

107 



CHARLES McEWBN HYDE 

my spiritual father, Rev. C. M. Hyde. All 
these blessings have now passed and a deep sense 
of a great loss has fallen upon the many who 
were his children in the Lord, and whose abodes 
are scattered throughout this island group. But 
the work that he did for the Hawaiian churches, 
for the youth of our nation and for the kingdom 
of Jesus, will never be lost, but will forever stand 
a monument to his memory. 

"While we are sorrowing at the thought 
that the words of wisdom we so much valued are 
no more to be heard, there breaks forth blessed be 
God, the light of hope from the shadows of the 
grave, a light whose source is the throne of the 
Almighty. 

"The life which he lived was rich in the 
service of his Master, and of his fellow men. 

"I first made the acquaintance of Dr. Hyde 
in the year 1880, that was two years before I en- 
tered the Theological Seminary, and at once 
upon meeting him, he gained my fullest confi- 
dence, as he showed me his kindly winning way, 
and as he advised me to enter the school, the sub- 
ject claimed my careful attention. I entered the 
school in 1882, and from that time I began to 
learn of his pre-eminent qualities. 

u As a teacher he was eminently fitted to im- 

108 



TRIBUTES 

part of the deep knowledge that rilled him, and 
ever ready to expound the Word of God. His 
scholars were continually asking him most diffi- 
cult questions, but he never asked them to wait 
long for an answer. He was ever prompt in 
answering every question. In his teaching he 
ever sought to put himself in the place of his 
scholars, and thus he drew them to place the ut- 
most confidence in him; and during the three 
years of my course in the school, I esteemed him 
a prince of teachers. 

"A frequent saying of his to us, his schol- 
ars, when we were discouraged was, 'perseverance 
is the road to victory'; and this was indeed a fit- 
ting sentiment to come from one who was himself 
the personification of perseverance amid difficul- 
ties. He was patient with our failures and with 
the difficulties which sprung up among his schol- 
ars. Often he was surrounded with difficulties 
and obstacles, and we could often see that the 
clouds were about him, but he never betrayed 
any discouragement with his scholars, and bore 
every difficulty with fortitude. 

"He was indeed a prince among men for his 
learning, yet he never made his great eminence 
an occasion for display of pride, but always ap- 
peared humble and childlike. Expressions of 

109 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

pride or haughtiness never found place on his 
tongue. 

"In the three years that I was a member of 
the school, I never saw him angry, and never 
heard a word from his lips that would indicate 
that he was angry. Indeed it was a common 
saying among the students, that 'Dr. Hyde did 
not know what it was to be angry*. Once one of 
the students asked him if he knew what it was to 
be angry, and he replied: 'Yes, I have known 
what anger is, but I left anger in America, and 
did not bring him with me when I came to 
Hawaii\ 

u The cause of this great victory of our 
teacher was that he possessed the truly meek and 
humble spirit, which came to him through his 
nearness to his Lord and Saviour. 

"His hands were full of the cares of the 
school. He was also a trustee of various schools 
in Honolulu, but none of these cares ever led 
him to forget his former scholars who were now 
pastors of various churches. He never failed to 
correspond with them, sending messages of love; 
and when he received contributions he promptly 
forwarded such aid to them. Though many such 
contributions were given to him personally, he 
hastened to share them with his less favored 

no 



TRIBUTES 

brethren. Filled as he was with love to them, 
he was the first in their times of difficulty to ex- 
tend the words of loving cheer and hope. 

"This was the character of his life; he lived 
for the good of others. 

"We honor him for the many sterling quali- 
ties that adorn his character, for his faithful en- 
durance in every good work, for his loving aid to 
his fellow-laborers, and for his service for the 
churches and the Sabbath-schools of Hawaii. 

"L,et us hold fast to every good thing that 
we have seen revealed in him, not forgetting his 
virtues, but seeking to be like him, and like him 
may we be faithful, unwearied workers until life 
shall end. May we be like him who lived not 
for himself but for his Master and for his fellow- 
men." 



Rev. Skreno E. Bishop, D. D., 

Editor of the "Friend", Honolulu. 

"It was my great privilege to be brought 
into somewhat close relations with him soon af- 
ter his arrival here. I became at once greatly 
impressed with his ripe maturity as a scholar, 

in 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

a Christian, and as, for a preacher, a man of af- 
fairs. He very early took a strong grasp upon 
his special work as a trainer of preachers and 
pastors, and upon that of a counsellor in eccle- 
siastical business, in both departments speedily 
developing a remarkable efficiency, and estab- 
lishing himself in the confidence of the Hawai- 
ian churches, as well as of his missionary breth- 
ren, several of whom were then still in somewhat 
active work. 'Kauka Hai' became a name of 
authority and ascendancy. 

u Dr. Hyde soon gained by scholarly industry 
a good working command of the native lan- 
guage. He acquired a copious and exact vocab- 
ulary, and became a ready and fluent speaker 
in Hawaiian, although at the age of forty-five he 
was incapable of idiomatic nicety of accent or 
expression. His written Hawaiian was excellent, 
both in diction and grammar. He possessed a rare 
expertness in clerical work, and has left behind 
him long and accurate records made with pecul- 
iar facility, as Recording Secretary of the Ha- 
waiian Board. An especially serviceable aptitude 
was shown in the discussions of the Board, but 
more particularly in our Church Association 
meetings, in discerning the points in which con- 
flicting or confused ideas could be brought to 

112 



TRIBUTES 

harmonize. It was a usual thing that some reso- 
lution or measure formulated by Dr. Hyde would 
meet with general acceptance and close a long 
and perhaps trying debate. Although not lack- 
ing in tenacity in his own propositions, he was 
not impracticable or averse to reasonable com- 
promises of opinion. In controversy, he was 
courteous and calm, and somewhat diplomatic in 
no bad sense. His influence was habitually for 
harmony and Christian compliance. His impress- 
ive personality and quiet, steadfast, yet reason- 
able demeanor became thus a strong and most 
happy educative force upon the native member- 
ship of our Island Associations, as well as in the 
annual meetings of our general 'Hawaiian Evan- 
gelical Association'. I think it may be said 
that no other individual did so much to shape 
their action. 

"During Dr. Hyde's twenty-one years of 
active labor in the North Pacific Missionary In- 
stitute, the great majority of the present pastors 
of the Hawaiian churches gained their training 
at his hands. It is a marked and obvious fact 
that during that period the character of the na- 
tive pastors has greatly advanced in intelligence 
and dignity, and I think also in depth of piety 
and faith, and in firmness of Christian integrity. 

i J 3 



CHARLES McBWBN HYDE 

While a part of this progress coincides with a 
general advance of the native people in educa- 
tion and character, it must largely be attributed 
to the wisdom and piety of the chief instructor 
of these pastors, as well as to his excellent assist- 
ants, Mrs. Hyde especially included. 

"No one who well knew Dr. Hyde could fail 
to be impressed with the devout spirituality of 
his piety, the strength and sincerity of his Chris- 
tian faith, or the chastened ripeness of his moral 
excellence. No one is faultless, but I have rarely 
known a man with so few or slight blemishes 
upon his moral brightness as Dr. Hyde. His life 
has been a noble and beautiful one. To a rare 
capacity for efficient and excellent work, and for 
influencing and controlling men, he added a deep 
and unselfish consecration to the service of our 
fk Lord in saving and uplifting the lowly." 



Rev. H. H. Parker, 

Pastor Kawaiahao Church, Honolulu. 

"Dr. Charles M. Hyde came to Hawaii in 
the summer of 1877 and entered forthwith upon 
his work in the training school for Hawaiian 

114 



TRIBUTES 

pastors in this city. The design of the school 
was to prepare young Hawaiians by a three or 
four years' course of study and religious training 
for pastorate work in the native churches, and 
also to fit other Hawaiians, as Providence should 
open the way for them, to carry Christian civili- 
zation to the islands beyond. And with this 
intent 'Father Alexander's' old 'school of the 
prophets' which had been located many years 
previous at Wailuku, Maui, was moved to Hono- 
lulu, where it eventually became the North Pa- 
cific Institute with Dr. Hyde at its head. In this 
school Dr. Hyde began a work which continued 
without interruption, through a period of twenty 
years of faithful, conscientious service in behalf 
of the people of Hawaii, his main object being 
to build up and equip a native ministry for the 
Hawaiian churches. The interest he manifested 
in this field of effort to which he was called was 
warm and ardent, bordering on enthusiasm, and 
it was an interest not to be cooled by difficulties 
which he frequently encountered. His faith at 
that time in the future growth and usefulness of 
the native ministry was large. 

"Dr. Hyde was always true to the best inter- 
ests of his students as he understood them, and 
he was honored and respected by the students as 

ii5 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

well as by the native people generally. I well 
remember his first attempt to address an andience 
of native Hawaiians in their mother tongne. It 
was one of those occasions that is always sure to 
draw a large crowd, and not very long after his 
arrival on the islands. At the close of the ser- 
vice not a few persons came forward to greet the 
stranger, for of course he was really a stranger to 
the greater portion of the crowd; but from that 
day on the Doctor was no stranger to the natives 
of Honolulu, who then and there gave him his 
native name of 'Kauka Hai' by which he was 
universally known among the Hawaiians. 

"The Doctor was an untiring worker for the 
young peoples* societies and Sunday schools. 
He accomplished a great deal in the way of pre- 
paring reading matter for the native youth, edit- 
ing up to almost the last month of his life a 
Sunday school magazine for use in the native 
Sunday schools. He wrote and translated much 
in the way of providing useful reading for the 
native pastors. 

u Dr. Hyde had a very marked personality 
which always impressed itself upon those who 
chanced to come within the sphere of his activ- 
ity. Where his life touched the life of others 
it was sure to leave its impression which was 

116 



TRIBUTES 

uniformly a healthful and happy impression. 
His life was fruitful. He was a man of many 
parts, easily at home in any field of Christian 
philanthropy, and always ready to do good to 
all men. His demise has created a vacancy not 
easy to fill. And yet 

'When you have lived your life, 

When you have fought your last fight and won, 

And the day's work is finished and the sun 

Sets in the darkened world, in all its strife, 

When you have lived your life, 

'Twere good to die'." 



Hon. Chas. R. Bishop, 

Founder of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. 

U I trust that you will permit me, one of his 
friends, to offer a few lines in testimony of my 
respect for him and my high appreciation of his 
work and influence in the Hawaiian Islands. He 
was a whole-souled missionary, a faithful friend 
to the Hawaiian people, and during all the years 
of his residence in Honolulu, he took a deep and 
active interest in all that concerned their moral, 
social and physical welfare. Much of his time, 
thought and strength were given to general edu- 

117 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

cation and uplifting of the various races repre- 
sented in the islands, and he was especially 
devoted to Oahu College, the Kamehameha 
Schools and the North Pacific Institute. 

"It was my good fortune to be associated 
with him as trustee of Oahu College; of the 
Estate of Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop ; the Ber- 
nice Pauahi Bishop Museum and other trusts, and 
I am indebted to him for many wise suggestions 
and efficient aid. In the management of the 
schools and museum his experience, culture and 
broad intelligence were of great advantage and 
value. He was systematic and rapid in his work, 
and hence, by constant application, accomplished 
great results. But few had so wide an acquaint- 
ance in the islands as he had, or will be so missed 
now that his work is done. His name and influ- 
ence are deservedly held in honor by all who 
knew him well and will not soon be forgotten." 



Miss Ida M. Pope. 

Principal of the Kamehameha School for Girls at Honolulu. 

u Dr. Hyde was closely identified with the 
educational interests of Hawaiians for many 

118 



TRIBUTES 

years and it is fitting that the Kamehameha 
School for Girls pay tribute to his memory. 

"From the inception of the school until his 
labors on earth ceased, Dr. Hyde was faithful to 
his obligations, as trustee, as member of the ed- 
ucational committee, as wise counsellor and trust- 
ed friend. 

"Dr. Hyde was pre-eminently a leader, a 
man who had a keen grasp of affairs religious, 
political, educational and social; a rare execu- 
tive ability that entered into the carrying out of 
details ; he was an example of an indefatigable 
worker, who spared not himself and asked the 
best of others. 

"Scarcely a week passed by but found Dr. 
Hyde a welcome visitor at Kamehameha, interest- 
ed and conversant with the routine work, help- 
ful with advice and suggestion. Not alone in 
class-room work but in every department of the 
school was his concern manifest ; in sewing- room, 
kitchen and laundry; favoring shop work for 
girls as well as boys ; advocating a training class 
for nurses and the giving of instruction in vari- 
ous branches of horticulture. 

"On public days, Founder's Day, at musi- 
cales, entertainments, commencements, alumni 
reunions his presence cheered and encouraged. 

119 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

He was punctilious in the performance of every 
duty. 

"Dr. Hyde was ever ready to consider what 
was for the benefit of the school in the future 
and it is good for us to know that one of the last 
letters he wrote was in favor of the erection of a 
hospital, where the pupils could receive profes- 
sional training and become self-respecting, self- 
supporting women. 

u Dr. Hyde hath wrought Hawaii and Ha- 
waiians lasting good. No more will he go in and 
out among us a familiar presence, but the good 
that he hath done will abide forever and ever, 
and along with Bernice Pauahi Bishop will be 
another 'Blessed Memory'." 



Mr. Goo Kim Fui. 

Chinese Vice-Consul, Honolulu. 

u Dr. Hyde came to the Hawaiian Islands to 
preach the Gospel. From the time I believed in 
Jesus I ever found him a real helper of the 
Chinese. In 1879 Dr. Hyde with J. T. Water- 
house and others helped in building the Chinese 
Church. I was one of the first elders and when- 
ever I went to Dr. Hyde for help or advice I al- 

120 



TRIBUTES 

ways found a ready response. 

" After the Chinese Church was opened for 
preaching services in 1881, Dr. Hyde directed the 
affairs of the Chinese Christians in their new 
chapel. He aided them in forming the church 
rules, administered the Lord's Supper, baptized 
the new members and helped in the other ser- 
vices of the Church. Dr. Hyde assisted me in 
starting the Sunday School and helped to make 
the Gospel truths more clear to the Christians. 
The early workers ever found Dr. Hyde ready to 
help them in their work and to give good coun- 
sel and advice in all their efforts. 

"I wished to start a Christian school for 
studying English and found a true supporter in 
Dr. Hyde. Miss Payson became the teacher of 
this school. 

"In all these efforts for upbuilding, educa- 
ting and advancing the Chinese of the Islands, 
for more than twenty years, Dr. Hyde gave his 
hearty support, and his memory will long be 
cherished in the hearts of those who knew and 
loved him. n 



121 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 



Rev. A. V. Soares, 

Pastor Portuguese Church, Honolulu. 

"I count it an honor to have the privilege 
of adding my loving tribute to the memory of 
the dear man whom I learned to love and rever- 
ence, not only because I am indebted to him for 
many kindnesses and favors and help given me, 
but also for his unselfish devotion to the Master's 
cause. 

"It was in 1890 that I first met Dr. Hyde, in 
my own home in Springfield, Illinois, whither he 
had come to try and obtain workers to engage in 
religious work among the Portuguese people in 
the Hawaiian Islands. It had already been pro- 
posed to me that I should take up this work, but 
my acceptance seemed doubtful, until Dr. Hyde 
came and in a kind and placid manner, which 
was so characteristic of him, presented the sub- 
ject in such a light that my wife and I after a 
time of prayerful consideration decided to go. 

"Dr. Hyde was a firm, kind, interested, 
helpful friend of the Portuguese Mission in 
Honolulu as long as he lived. 

"I shall never forget how often he visited 
our little congregation and the encouraging, 

122 



TRIBUTES 

helpful words he gave us from the pulpit. Al- 
though a man of numerous duties, for he was 
interested in every educational, moral and uplift- 
ing enterprise for the good of his fellow-men, he 
was never too busy to receive me when I went 
to him for advice : he was a man of sound judg- 
ment and foresight, one upon whose judgment it 
would be safe to rely. He was very unselfish 
with his valuable library, and not only gave me 
the privilege of using it, but he himself would 
choose those books he deemed most helpful to me 
and would even himself bring them to my house. 
On one occasion I said to him, 'Doctor, you spend 
a great deal of your time on me'. In his usual 
kind tone he replied, 'Mr. Soares, that is what 
I am here for\ Helpfulness to all who needed 
his help was always found in him as in the 
Christ whom he loved. 

"I remember one time he carried an armful 
of books from his carriage to my door. With 
his permission I kept some of his books for a 
year or more. After his death, I carried a num- 
ber of his books, which I still had in my posses- 
sion, to Mrs. Hyde who, after looking them over 
and finding they were helpful to me, kindly 
offered them to me. By the death of Dr. Hyde 
the religious, moral and educational cause in 

123 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

Honolulu lost a faithful friend, but outside of his 
bereaved family, none, perhaps, lost as much as 
I did. Of him it can truly be said, 'His works 
do follow himV 



Hon. Taro Ando, 

Tokyo, Japan. 

"It was in 1886 when I went to Hawaii as 
Japanese Consul-General. There were then about 
three thousand Japanese laborers mostly engaged 
in different sugar plantations, but their moral 
condition was in such a state that unless they 
were properly guided, the consequences would 
surely prove fatal to the development of Ha- 
waiian resources, as the islands entirely depend- 
ed upon immigrant laborers, among whom the 
Japanese were then regarded as the most impor- 
tant element. 

"Under these circumstances Dr. Hyde, who 
was then the president of the Hawaiian Mission 
Board, offered his services for the training of the 
Japanese residents in Honolulu, as well as in 
various other places. He then opened regular 
religious meetings in the building of the Hawaiian 
Y. M. C. A. and other commodious places, where 

124 



TRIBUTES 

he devoted his exertions to instruct the Japanese 
morally and spiritually, as far as his time could 
permit him to do so. His work was ably assisted 
by his cheerful and talented lady in singing and 
musical and other various social gatherings, 
which always gave needed comfort and pleasure 
to those who were far away from their homes. 
Such devotional services rendered by these virtu- 
ous and experienced workers naturally brought 
about an excellent success: the Gosoel and tern- 
perance found their way among the Japanese im- 
migrants who have almost entirely changed their 
moral and social condition to such an extent that 
the Japanese that had been once defamed, grad- 
ually restored their good name and in conse- 
quence their number has since come up to nearly 
thirty thousand souls at present in those islands. 

u In fact, in the latter part of 1887, the 
evangelical work by the M. E. Church in San 
Francisco commenced in the island, and they se- 
cured a pretty good success among the Japanese 
as well, but I can positively declare that this 
they have greatly owed to the indefatigable 
efforts of Dr. Hyde. 

"In this remarkable movement, I am happy 
to say that, I was so situated as to be able to co- 
operate with this worthy doctor, for I was with 

125 



CHARLES McKWEN HYDE 

him all the time from the beginning, say 1886 
till 1889, that is, for the space of nearly fonr 
years. I am equally proud to assert that no one 
but myself could tell more correctly and accu- 
rately the account of this wonderful achievement 
in holy work among the Japanese in the Pacific 
paradise." 



Prof. W. D. Alexander, 

Honolulu. 

U I count it a rare privilege to have enjoyed 
the friendship of such a man, and to have been 
associated with him in a few of the many lines 
of Christian work which he carried on with such 
untiring zeal and devotion. He was many-sided 
in his talents and also in his labors for the wel- 
fare of his fellow-men in all departments of the 
life that now is, as well as in that which is to 
come. 

"It was in the line of educational work that 
I came into touch with him most frequently. 
He was especially gifted as an instructor, and as 
a leader and organizer of educational work. 
Like an able general, he constantly kept in view 

126 



TRIBUTES 

the whole field, and laid comprehensive and far- 
reaching plans for future progress. In ail the 
different boards with which he was connected, 
his mature judgment and experience had great 
weight. He not only founded and conducted for 
quarter of a century the North Pacific Mission 
Institute in which nearly all the present Hawai- 
ian pastors have been trained, but continued to 
guide and assist his former pupils through their 
after-life. 

"For twenty-two years he bore a leading 
part in the councils of the board of trustees of 
Oahu College, which lay very near his heart, and 
it was there I first came to know and appreciate 
him. Enjoying, as he did, the entire confidence 
of Hon. C. R. Bishop, it fell to his lot, to do a 
great work in assisting to organize and carry on 
the Kamehameha Schools and the Bishop Mu- 
seum. In all our institutions of learning his in- 
fluence will long be felt, and 'his works do follow 
him\ 

u It was in 1883 I think, that he started the 
'Social Science Association', of which he contin- 
ued to be the inspiring spirit, and which has 
served to draw out the best thoughts of some of 
our leading minds on social questions. 

"Of his relations to the Public Library As- 

127 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

sociation, I have less personal knowledge, but I 
do know that he did much towards building it 
up and widening its sphere of usefulness. 

"He also took an active part in founding the 
Hawaiian Historical Society, and was a valued 
co-worker in the field of Hawaiian language and 
folk-lore. 

"I have mentioned only a part of his mani- 
fold activities, but into them all he carried a 
spirit of devout consecration to his Divine Mas- 
ter. 

"If ever a man seemed to be indispensable 
to this country, it was he, and when he was called 
to go up higher, we felt like saying with Elisha, 
'My father, my father, the chariots of Israel, and 
the horsemen thereof'." 



Prof. M. M. Scott, 

Principal of the High School, Honolulu. 

"The people of Honolulu will remember, 
not without gratitude, the late Dr. Hyde's many- 
sided activities for the public good. For more 
than twenty years his name has been connected 
with the various institutions most pronounced in 

128 



TRIBUTES 

their beneficent effects on the public welfare. 

"He was connected with the Library and 
Reading Room Association from its incipiency, 
and as one of the trustees and as one of the com- 
mittee of three for choosing of books, his advice 
and literary taste were always at the service of 
the institution. He never failed to be present 
at all of its meetings, however pressed he might 
be in other directions. 

u As an intimate friend of the wealthy bank- 
er, Mr. Charles R. Bishop, he was largely instru- 
mental in securing from that gentleman endow- 
ments amounting altogether to more than forty 
thousand dollars to put the Library upon a per- 
manent financial basis. His broad views and 
excellent business qualities were of great assist- 
ance in the plans and construction of the present 
building. 

"His educated literary tastes were shown to 
great advantage as a member of the Literary 
Committee. While having decided views of his 
own in regard to its management and the selec- 
tion of books, with a view to the education and 
direction of the reading and literary tastes of 
the community, he was always conciliatory, in 
his mental and moral make-up, to those differing 
from his views. During his entire connection 

129 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

with the library, he never missed a meeting ex- 
cepting when absent from town, or when neces- 
sarily kept away by indisposition. 

u At his death, the trustees recognized the 
fact that they had lost one of their most intelli- 
gent, courteous, and conscientious members, and 
a testimonial engrossed to that effect was sent to 
his family. 

u He was the originator and the main sup- 
port of the Social Science Club, an organization 
whose functions are similar to those of a like 
nature in other places, and containing the schol- 
arship, scientific tastes and business enterprise 
of Honolulu. From the beginning until his 
death, he was its secretary, in which capacity he 
looked after and directed, to a large extent, the 
character of its contributions, places of meeting 
and all other matters pertaining to its welfare 
and efficiency. 

u Each year, it held its first meeting at his 
house. As secretary of the club, his summing 
up of the main points of the papers was a mar- 
vel of definite and incisive reporting of the chief 
excellence of the essay, which when read at the 
meetings was in some respects superior to the 
original. 

"All the members knew that at his death no 

130 



TRIBUTES 

one could fill his place. At the final meeting, 
after his decease, a resolution was carried, em- 
bodying his unequalled excellency as secretary, 
and his general usefulness in keeping the club to 
its high standard of efficiency. 

"In every community, especially in a devel- 
oping commercial and industrial one, there are 
needed some men of the highest culture and the 
most devoted public spirit to take the lead in 
calling the attention of men of wealth, but ab- 
sorbed entirely in their own affairs, to the public 
needs. 

"Dr. Hyde pre-eminently filled that place 
for the last twenty years in Honolulu. It was 
largely through his initiation and through his 
energy and high public spirit that many of the 
noblest monuments of public utility exist in 
Honolulu. 



Prof. William T. Brigham, 

Director of the Museum, Honolulu. 

"What Dr. Hyde was to the Bishop museum 
few beside the museum staff could appreciate, 
for his good work was not done 'to be seen of 
men'. Long before the birth of this museum he 

131 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

had seen the insufficiency of the Government 
museum, and the great need of some more effi- 
cient means of preserving the fast disappearing 
remains of Hawaiian primitive industry. His 
interest in the Hawaiian people and their works 
led him to study with his usual painstaking care 
the native names of implements, of animals and 
plants, and his notes are to-day in possession of 
the museum. When at last it became possible 
to realize his hopes in the memorial museum 
which Charles Reed Bishop founded to contain 
the collections of his wife, Dr. Hyde as one of 
the trustees entered most heartily into the plans 
of the newly appointed Curator to make this 
more than a mere cabinet of curiosities. 

"As the plans were developed and the muse- 
um grew into a scientific living institution, rank- 
ing with the more important museums of its 
kind in the world, Dr. Hyde was the foster- 
father, cheering the only laborer in that museum 
for years with his sympathy and counsel. In a 
community where the greed of gain might easily 
turn earnest men from higher pursuits, it was 
especially helpful to have the sympathy of an 
intelligent and good man. More than physical, 
more than pecuniary aid, was the appreciative 
word given often when the museum and its in- 

132 



TRIBUTES 

terests seemed to have passed from the notice 
of all other men. 

"When a new and important collection was 
added to the museum, it was always a pleasure 
to drive to his house the next morning to tell 
him of it, for he was always pleased and could 
understand the value of each addition. With 
prophetic insight he could see in the struggling 
time of small beginnings the great possibilities 
concealed in the germ. While others thought it 
unwise to exchange so much good money for 
books and specimens, — books in some foreign 
language they could not read — specimens that 
were obsolete or out of fashion, relics of a de- 
caying race, he well understood that these things 
rightly used were not mere curiosities, but edu- 
cational material : not to amuse an idle tourist, 
but to be read as a chapter in the great history 
of man's development : to show, so far as inani- 
mate things can show, how far these people 
of the Pacific islands had traveled on the road 
from primitive barbarism to civilization, and to 
preserve the record for all to read when the last 
of the islanders shall have passed away or been 
absorbed into other races. 

" Personally my first meeting with Dr. Hyde 
was in 1880. I had come to Hawaii to study an 

133 



CHARLES McEWEN HYDE 

expected eruption of Mauna L,oa, and soon after 
my arrival Dr. Hyde called to offer any assist- 
ance in his power. An interval of eight years 
passed, and on my return to Hawaii he was 
among the first to greet me, and from that day 
I was assured of his help in any attempt to 
improve the local opportunities for study and ad- 
vancement. Although not a scientist he under- 
stood fully the importance of scientific methods, 
and from the first was ready to work with all his 
power to prevent the new museum from becom- 
ing a mere passing entertainment. Hence his 
constant advocacy of the purchase of books for 
the needed library of scientific reference, his ap- 
proval of all acquisitions of scientific material 
even if not attractive to the ephemeral tourist. 

"With all this it never seemed to me that 
the museum was in any sense a hobby. He was 
quite as much interested in his school for native 
ministers, in the Kamehameha schools, in the 
Historical Society, in the Public Library. It was 
simply his earnest interest in anything he be- 
lieved was likely to do good service to his fellow 
men, and we of the museum felt grateful to him 
for the large share he gave us. n 



*34 



TRIBUTES 
Gov. Sanford B. Dole, 

Honolulu. 

u During recent years I have often noticed 
with admiration Dr. Hyde's devotion to duty in 
many things outside of his professional work, 
and his intelligent interest and pronounced pub- 
lic spirit in all subjects and enterprises in the 
domain of good citizenship. 

"It has been very evident to those in touch 
with him that he was in the habit of contribu- 
ting a great deal of his time and strength in work 
of a public character. Even when he was a very 
sick man he was persistent in attention to such 
matters with great personal inconvenience to 
himself. 

"A man who gives himself in generous 
measure to other than pecuniary enterprise for 
the general advancement in education and char- 
acter is a most wholesome influence in the affairs 
of men. I think Dr. Hyde was such a man." 



135 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



